Stephen Burdett

Here And Now I Am Alive, 2023
lumen print reproduced as ink jet print 76 x 95 x 4 cm

In a dark space, I breathed onto silver gelatin paper, pressing my face into it so that vapour in my breath traced out my face. I placed the paper in the sun briefly. Where vapour touched paper, it changed colour. I fixed the image and produced a large digital negative. I wished to reduce my story "I live, I breath, I( am.". It is everybody's story. In the final anaysis it is the only story that matters.

Tamara Dean

Blowin in the wind, 2024
Archival inkjet on cotton rag 160 x 120 x 3 cm

Climate change continues to wreak havoc on the environment. No longer on our doorstep; we are now knee-deep in the crisis.
In “Blowin in the wind”, rising sea levels have entered the urban environment. A businessman navigates his way through the flooded landscape, grasping at loose pages from the COP23 report which tumble, torn and discarded  through the scene. 
This series speaks to my despair at the shackled pace of change in Australia.
The question I keep asking myself: Do we sink or swim?

Sam Holt

'Savoured some more', 2024
Oil and acrylic on photographic printed linen 122 x 96.5 x 3.5 cm

The painting ‘Savoured some more’ is a futile attempt to document a memory, mimicking the abstracting nature of a memory. The initial snap on my phone looking out from my parents place in kangaroo valley, was then abstracted through digital painting, then digitally printed and stretched in the studio for which it morphs again to my intuition through acrylic and oil paint. Abstracting at every whim to become not a landscape of a place, but a journaled portrait of my feelings savoured.

Sara Nash

Nameless, Faceless, 2023
Inkjet on Hanhemuhle Photorag, 308gsm 1188 x 1014 cm

This self portrait series is in response to the tragic increase of gendered violence in Australia.

Though my features are obscured, the trauma and fear is unmistakable.The soft colour palette imbues the piece with a sense of sensitivity. There is a heaviness to the atmosphere, conveying the weight of grief and loss.

This diptych is a poignant tribute to the victims while also challenging viewers to confront the societal factors that perpetuate injustice.

Sean O'Connell

ruins of the Rainbow Chalet - electric ground, 2024
inkjet print on archival rag, from 8x10 black and white original 140 x 150 cm

This image is of remains from the ruins of the Rainbow Chalet on the shores of yingina / Great Lake, in subalpine Tasmania. Corroded copper pipe, rusted nails, pottery shards, and a handful of dirt, were laid directly onto 8x10 film and exposed through high voltage electricity. The electricity of the Hydroelectric scheme, that doomed the chalet as the water levels rose, is used here to visualise the decaying remains, as they slowly disintegrate back into ground.

Simone Rosenbauer

LIKE ICE IN THE CLOUDS I #106, (JAPAN), 2024
Fine Art Pigment print 164 x 164 x 4.5 cm

'Like Ice in the Clouds I' is a photographic series created during my residency near Mt. Fuji. The work captures the silent dialogue between the eternal and the ephemeral, the serene and the dynamic, celebrating the beauty of impermanence. Each ice cream, serving as a metaphor for the human condition, stands against backgrounds that reflect Japan's rich cultural and environmental nuances. Through this series, I invite viewers to discover the beauty in the transient reflections of human emotions.

Lisa Gipton

June 10, 2024
75 Fujifilm Instax Wide prints 115 x 103 x 3 cm

Intrigued with ideas of place and atmosphere June 11 explores the temporal observing and capturing the effects of light and air across the sky. The idea of time is intrinsic to the work 75 unique Fujifilm Instax Wide prints seize moments in time over one day. The works are mysterious abbreviated monochromatic colour soft misty and ethereal with a strong emotive content their quiet quality is poetic and lyrical.

LYNNE ROBERTS-GOODWIN

Light Strike 55, 2023
Inkjet photographic print on Hahnemühle FineArt 320 gsm pearl paper 190 x 86.44 cm

Light Strike 55 conceptually seeks to explore the aesthetics of lightning & relationship to time to reveal insights into both the nature of aerial terrains & perception. From one image captured nocturnally, I have used the grid to divide the single image into fifty-five randomly chosen sections. I feel this conceptual random approach challenges traditional perceptions of time & sequence & narrative, emphasizing the disjointed & ephemeral nature of lighting, both sublime & terrifying.

Mark Kimber

Saudade #25, 2024
Tintype 25.4 x 20.32 cm
Saudade

this work employs the 150-year-old Tintype photographic process, an archaic and painstaking form of photography, involving creating images on a coated metal plate. The process produces unique, one-off images to confront the pervasive issue of plastic waste. Through my efforts to subvert the familiar, disposable nature of plastic products, and their “invisibility” (it is only what is contained within in these plastic forms that concerns us, the “shell” being regarded as fundamentally “i

Matthew Schiavello

The essence of self i, 2023
unique state print 33 x 25 x 2 cm

This series explores the concept of healing our past, through intervention of the medium it has been captured on.

Salt has been used across history in cleansing and purification rituals. Using a rediscovered roll of film, documenting a time of sadness and loss in the artist's life, select images are presented for healing and purification through a process of soaking them in salt.

The images metamorphose leaving non objective shapes of texture and vivid colour.

A renewed sense of self emerges.

Melanie Cobham

'The Death of Images', 2024
35mm photograph, silver extracted from spent photographic fixer, timber support. 70 x 110 x 10 cm

At the intersection of landscape and language lies silver, a light-sensitive metal that is the cornerstone of the photographic industry. As silver resources dwindle world-wide, they force us to consider new ways in which to document the world around us.

Recovered from spent photographic fix, the silver droplet holds the memory of all the images it once materialised. It highlights the precarious double-bind between media and landscapes, and the socio-ecologic repercussions of image-making.

Winner of 2024 MCPP $30,000 Cash Prize

Merilyn Fairskye

Focus Infinity IV (4.41am, 09 May 2024, Maralinga village), 2024
archival pigment print on photo rag 100 x 150 cm

Focus Infinity IV is part of my ongoing Long Life Project (https://www.longlifeproject.com). My current work looks at Australia and its looming nuclear future. On a recent visit to Maralinga, site of British nuclear tests in the 50s and 50s, I wanted to see what would be revealed if I photographed in complete darkness. My settings were f/1.4, 00:30 exposure, ISO 1600, focus ∞. Mid-exposure, I moved my camera from sky to earth.

Minami Ivory

How it happened, 2024
Digital collage on paper 60 x 142 cm

“How it happened” (triptych) is a work from a series “Weapon of Choice”, which revisits a summer of violence and trauma that I experienced and witnessed as a teenager.

Through self portraiture, I delve into my past experiences trying to make sense of why this happened and the impact it has had on my life to this present day.

While haunting and at times difficult to recall and represent, my work also celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and acts as a vehicle of acceptance and healing.

Orlando Luminere

Wasted View, 2024
Photograph using Camera Obscura digital made from trash, filled with trash 85 x 65 x 4 cm

I explore our increasing bias towards using technology, such as smartphones, to perceive the beauty of the world. Utilising a camera obscura crafted from a repurposed steel rubbish bin, I transform discarded detritus into a way of re-seeing our environment. The kaleidoscopic imagery within the piece reflects the endless cycles of digital reproduction and dissemination. Viewers are invited to question the authenticity of their connection with the tangible world.

Janet Tavener

Glitch I, 2024
Digital photographic print on Hahnemühle German Etching 70 x 160 cm

This image is part of a series titled Glitch, it features 250,000 year old icebergs from the Quaternary Ice Age. The images allude to a light leak, a mishap, or malfunction. A glitch in the image that parallels the glitch in our fragile environment.

Joseph Blair

Skies Over Roubaix, 2023
Injet print 20 x 16 cm

"Skies over Roubaix" utilises the control functions of an unsecured surveillance camera, shifting its low-resolution gaze from a public wall to the sky. Over several hours, I documented the shifting digital sky. This intervention questions the legitimacy of private surveillance in public spaces, while exploring new modes of image-making. It contrasts the unease of surveillance against the serene, questioning what deserves attention and reflecting on the pervasive impact of constant observation.

Kathy Mackey

AQUEOUS Site 3, 2024
Digital photographic print on Hahnemühle photo rag paper 120 x 120 cm

In this work, Mackey explores conceptual similarities /differences between analogue and digital markmaking and alludes to physical and chemical relationships between water and paper.
This considers the visual possibilities of what was originally a en plein air field drawing by immersing the original work within a “contained site” of water. By allowing the fibres of the paper be disrupted within a narrow depth of field – Mackey creates a new interpretation of the site.

Kiah Pullens

Space Junk, 2024
Hand printed Chromogenic Photograph 990 x 675 cm

Space Junk is not just a constructed hand-printed c-type photograph; it's a visual narrative echoing the complex relationship between humanity and the vast expanse of space. In this work, I delve into the profound implications of human interference, shedding light on the pressing issue of space debris and the lack of boundaries in managing our celestial surroundings.The scattered fragments and overlapping elements symbolize the chaos and clutter that we have introduced into the cosmic realm.

Linda Swinfield

Mother Site II: for Eleanor ( with Selfies), 2024
Digital prints from using multiple exposed film, onto signage and photo silkscreen prints on recycled perspex sheets with Ikea shelves. 200 x 200 x 20 cm

Mother site II: for Eleanor,(with selfies),2024 is a hybrid printmaking work that traces family stories and history within the layers of the work. It is the story of Linda Swinfields' long-deceased ancestor Eleanor Meredith. Mother Site II is a feminist story attempting to underline women's collective history in colonial Australia. The selected images submerge; and reemerge themselves inviting what is hidden to be revealed again just as history does in revision.

Darren Tanny Tan

When the Dust Settles (Clouds #2), 2024
Mixed media on archival pigment print, framed 43 x 32 x 5 cm

When the Dust Settles centres on the reworking of historical photographs of conflict made prominent by the so-called "history of photography”. Elements from these photographs are montaged and subjected to physical interventions involving the expedient misuse of photographic chemicals. The resulting works, which bear resemblances to aged photographs, are represented as ersatz traces of the past—intimations of the longevity of images and their attendant failings. 

Eunie Kim

Waves Under My Skin, 2023
Hand -coated silver gelatin emulsion on cotton paper 43 x 62 cm

This meeting of water and rock is on the coastline of my distant country of birth. The images represent my identity in flux, the shifting forms of memory, and the roiling tension between what I most love and hate about that place. The surface traces of foam are the branching veins under my skin. They are printed using a silver gelatin emulsion applied by brushstroke.

Hilary Wardhaugh

A Meditation of Death, 2024
digital print on archival photo rag paper 81 x 142 cm

Comprising 12 8x10” digitised lumen prints created by piercing 2000 tiny holes into black card and used as a stencil placed over light-sensitive photo paper exposed in sunlight. The conceptual foundation of this work draws inspiration from the Maranasati meditation, a contemplative practice centred on the inevitability of death, encouraging introspection on the consequences of humanity's violence and impermanence.

The 12 images together represent the 24,000 people killed as of the 3rd January 2024.

Jacob Raupach

Various Small Fires I + II, 2024
Victorian Blackwood, UV Inkjet Prints, Dibond, Copper Anode 160 x 900 x 70 cm

Various Small Fires take the industrial and social histories of Creswick and Ballarat as their starting point, aiming to collapse the co-existent heritages of gold mining and forestry and draw out how these industries have shaped our current social and environmental realities.

The works take their sculptural forms from the street networks of Creswick, creating formal, grid-like structures to support photographs using Victorian Blackwood as the substrate.

Chris Byrnes also known on insta as lady_camera_obscura

Sequential Yellow Light Dawn to Sunrise, 2023
hand altered silver gelatin photograph 48 x 38 cm

A random or accidental ‘human act’ alters the image. Altered states allow a new conceptual basis linking the photograph to an experience embracing other art forms and mediums. The overall strength of the original image should be evident and remain at its core.

Damian Dillon

shoot, 2024
high resolution UV print,pigment inkjet print on white perspex 61 x 65 x 6 cm

'Shoot" ironically shot on malabar rifle range sydney,breaks down digital and analogue processes to explore how representation of the landscape shapes our post colonial understanding of place .Shot on pre-soaked film using a crude camera,it's scanned and printed using the latest digital technologies ,commenting on technological change , neglect of subject, and image entropy whilst, questioning the flow of images and the impermanence of images in our era of image overload .

Ian Skinner

A Pale Blue Dot, 2024
Inkjet print on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag (unframed) 140 x 140 cm

This is fragment of plastic was found on a small Australian beach. 

The oceans are awash with a micro-plastic soup that can even be found in our own bodies. 

The title of this work references the image NASA’s Voyager I took of Earth in 1990 as it departed the solar system; and earlier Apollo Mission images of the blue planet set against the blackness of space. These images challenged us to really see Earth in a more profound way, as Carl Sagan said "Look again at that dot. That's here". 

Aurelie Beeston

What happened to my home, 2024
Cyanotype on watercolour paper 52 x 42 x 3 cm

In 2022, a rain bomb flooded my home, destroying most of our belongings while we were away. This cyanotype, created with rain and water from the creek that inundated us, represents that event. Not being there when it happened means that every storm induces anxiety.  Through this process, I aim to take control over the elements that brought chaos into our lives. The outcome is always dictated by nature in the end, making every cyanotype unique and somehow unpredictable. And I now embrace it.

Aidan Gageler

Loom, 2024
Expired film, dye sublimation on aluminium, artist made frame 120 x 96 x 4 cm

Loom offers its audience an encounter with photography in its most immediate form, inscribed only (and slowly) by light, time, and chemistry. Made without a camera, using photographic sheet film that expired in the mid 1950s, this work is ungoverned by intelligible markers and avoids being read as a picture or symbols. Instead, it opens up the possibility of being felt or experienced, affordances offered commonly to music but rarely visual art.

Aldona Kmieć

Veil, white, 2024
Photography, archival ink on 395gsm artist canvas, framed in oak, ed. 1/3 + AP 120 x 90 x 4.5 cm

The longer I live, the less I remember. Photography is a vital activity that preserves the fragments of my life. My partner and I come from vastly different worlds: he grew up in suburban Melbourne, while I was raised on a farm in Communist-era Poland. This work reflects my need to explore themes of identity and the emotions tied to moving to a foreign country. It provides a broader narrative and context for dialogue around migration, the concept of 'fitting in,' and the complexity of belongi...

Annabelle McEwen

Data Composite, 2024
photograph laser etched wood block printed in plaster 18 x 18 x 2 cm

As technology extracts resources, the body has become a commodified data asset. This work interrogates virtual surveillance by repeatedly filtering the self portrait through social media editing software fabricating a compression artefact. Printing into plaster transposes my visual data into a physicality as an antithesis to the virtual images we consume via the luminosity of screens. My body is atomised and disseminated throughout the ether of the cloud and my legacy is written in data.

Caleb Arcifa

Sonant Autograph #001 (Joini), 2023
Giclee Enlargement from Silver Gelatin Original 780 x 710 cm

Sonant Autograph #001 (Joini), explores the multimodal capacity of photography to convey the essence of the individual. This novel technique utilises sound to augment traditional processes with the subject’s energy, resulting in a unique print that is ‘signed’ by their sonic identity – in this case, Joini and her faithful rendition of ‘If I Ain’t Got You’ by Alicia Keys. The ephemeral portrait obscures yet captures more than a visual likeness, questioning the underlying notions of the self.

Michaela Meadow

An Island Memory, 2024
35mm archival pigment print on cotton rag (framed) 50 x 40 x 2.5 cm

‘An Island Memory’ is 35mm long exposure caught at dusk, taken at the edge between land and sea, waking and dream - on the very real island of Formentera. Through my gaze, and the alchemical process of capturing light, this moment also became transmuted into myth.

My camera is a device for communicating with liminal realms. The photoshoot itself, is a performance; a ritual in transfigured time.

Rozalind Drummond

‘Scenario’ exists at the intersection of photography, sculpture, and performance. Experimenting with the conceptual boundaries of my recent photographic work, I utilize architectural settings as temporal stages. Through a series of improvised interventions involving both dancers and non-dancers, we explore the interplay between architectural space and human movement. This approach employs a workshop-style format, blending free form and directed movement to actively engage with and respond to the spatial configurations and material qualities unique to each environment.

Helen Poyser & what

Coming Forth by Day, 2024
Framed digital photographic print on Hahnemuhle Photo rag 308gsm and watercolour on Canson 300gsm watercolour paper 40 x 80 cm

Coming Forth by Day is a diptych created by myself, Helen Poyser and my partner of 16 years, what. The photograph was taken by what on his Leica Monochrom of a tree we both touched that was as warm as flesh, on the first walk we took after I came out of a two week long coma. The watercolour element of the diptych is my response to the coma, the walk, the tree, and what’s image of it.