MCPP 2026 Finalists Gallery
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Mark Neal Alday Peel Mark Neal Alday Peel
Mark Neal Alday
Peel, 2026
Giclée print on fine art cotton rag 59.4 x 84.1 cmIn an era when recollection without a recording becomes unreliable and generative AI twists truth in documenting, I embrace the inaccuracy of a photograph made from human memory. In "Peel", I captured the bark of an ancient tree in Melbourne with my eyes, printing by hand with traditional ballpoint techniques. I then returned to the site and recaptured it with a camera, placing them side-by-side. "Phos" and "graphê”, meaning drawing with light — my body itself an instrument of image-making.
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lisa anderson Arctic Sublime lisa anderson Arctic Sublime
lisa anderson
Arctic Sublime, 2025
digital inkjet print on cotton rag paper, framed 77 x 110 x 5 cmThe iceberg emerges from the fog of Disko Bay, Greenland, suspended between beauty and danger. Its monumental form appears almost mythical, drifting silently toward our small vessel through the mist. Mesmerising in its stillness yet powerful in its presence, it evokes the romance and uncertainty of polar seas. Having worked on expedition and science vessels in these regions, I remain deeply drawn to these landscapes through both experience and family heritage.
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Sandra Barnard That Might Look Good in My Enlarger II Cruets CMYKRGB Sandra Barnard That Might Look Good in My Enlarger II Cruets CMYKRGB
Sandra Barnard
That Might Look Good in My Enlarger II – Cruets CMYKRGB, 2025
Hand printed Chromogenic Photograph 87 x 76 x 4 cmBellowgram is a camera-less photograph made by exposing photographic paper inside the enlarger bellows—the light-proof space between the lens and film plane. I place objects within this void and expose them directly in the darkroom, creating reversed images where the subject becomes the film and the print functions as the negative. 'That Might Look Good in My Enlarger II – Cruets CMYKRGB' (2025) references Talbot's 'Articles of Glass' (1844).
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Dane Beesley STRUT Dane Beesley STRUT
Dane Beesley
STRUT, 2025
archival pigment print 100 x 80 cmThe vibrant green of the industrial bin rises like a mountain peak against a stark blue sky, sliced by a sharp red horizon. The inclusion of dangling legs in crimson heels provides a sudden, human pulse within this geometric world. It is a study of colour and form that challenges where the 'natural' landscape ends and the urban one begins.
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David Bignell Reflecting David Bignell Reflecting
David Bignell
Reflecting, 2026
Inkjet print on Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Gloss 27 x 27 cmReflecting explores the quiet moments of thought that emerge during travel. Seen through the train window, the figure becomes layered with reflections from both inside and outside, blurring the boundary between private emotion and the passing world. The image considers how we often see ourselves through fragments - memories, other people, fleeting moments - and how reflection can reveal both connection and isolation at the same time.
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Sarah Black Carrot Flower Sarah Black Carrot Flower
Sarah Black
Carrot Flower, 2026
Pigment Inkjet Print 60 x 60 cmCarrot Flower is an analogue photograph whose film was developed in an extract of home-grown plums — the garden invited as active participant into an instance of image-making. The work is part of an ongoing series of site-specific investigations into the living relationships between place, process, material, and idea, alongside the embodied work of caring for and with a domestic vegetable garden.
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Patricia Casey The Alone Patricia Casey The Alone
Patricia Casey
The Alone, 2026
C Type Photograph on Paper 33 x 50 cmCurrently on an Artist Residency in Ireland, I have been making small dioramas using my own photographs and tiny anonymous human figures. Experimenting with blur and composition of the tiny figures in the landscape. Moving around the disparate elements that have never existed together to convey meaning. This time away has allowed me to really experiment and use the camera in less conventional ways. This image exquisitely captures, in my imagination, the moment loneliness transcends into solitude
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Peter Charuk Collateral Atmospherics 28 18 51 S 153 26 4 E Peter Charuk Collateral Atmospherics 28 18 51 S 153 26 4 E
Peter Charuk
Collateral Atmospherics 28 18' 51'' S 153 26' 4'' E, 2026
single-channel video, colour, sound (stereo), 5min 40sec, aspect ratio 16:9Collateral Atmospherics 28 18' 51'' S 153 26' 4'' E engages with the cane growing landscape of the Tweed aimed at recording the luminous, textural and fluid qualities of a rapidly changing landscape. It uses a poetic juxtaposition of observed phenomena using a binocular visionary form. What constitutes a changing climate and a wider discourse continues to re-define the social implications on the use of the landscape by humans, and this work contributes to that debate.
https://vimeo.com/11961668 -
Alannah Fencker Baroque Path Alannah Fencker Baroque Path
Alannah Fencker
Baroque Path, 2025
Digital Print 55 x 126 cmThe Baroque Path is a map and a metaphor. It has been built with salvage from the broken path that still remains just out of sight.
The path could be the journey of Maiden to Crone or breakdown to recovery, depending on the direction it is read from.
My current practice uses multiple images to focus on the nature of perception, presentation, belief and "reality".
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Michelle Ferreira Where the Green Seeps into the Concrete 1 Berlin Michelle Ferreira Where the Green Seeps into the Concrete 1 Berlin
Michelle Ferreira
Where the Green Seeps into the Concrete #1 Berlin, 2025
Giclée Photographic Print 56 x 80 x 4 cmThis image explores the relationship between built and natural elements in urban landscapes, highlighting our connection to green spaces. Through in-camera double exposure, layered images create abstract environments where city and nature converge — a poetic reflection on an ever-changing landscape and a call to protect the balance between urban development and the natural world. Each image is created from photographs taken within the same field of view, reimagining how nature exists.
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Cailyn Forrest 140720252 From Silver Flesh Cailyn Forrest 140720252 From Silver Flesh
Cailyn Forrest
140720252 (From Silver Flesh), 2025
silver gelatin print on hand-coated rice paper 71 x 68 cm'140720252' is a large-scale analogue self-portrait produced on hand-coated rice paper. Through diluted emulsion and repeated acts of coating, immersion, and handling, the image seeps into the paper's fibres, embedding traces of bodily labour within the material. Embracing fragility, instability, and contingency, the work positions photography as a durational, embodied process in which body, material, and image remain inseparable.
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Aidan Gageler Echoes Aidan Gageler Echoes
Aidan Gageler
Echoes, 2025
ANSCOCHROME colour film that expired in June 1963, dye sublimation on aluminium 120 x 96 x 3 cmEchoes is ANSCOCHROME daylight balanced colour film that expired in June 1963 that was sourced from the USA. Without prior exposure or manipulation, the film is tray processed in colour negative chemistry in complete darkness. The resulting image, while made using traditional practices, is unconventional in its representation. It bears the scars of 70+ years of oxidation, environmental influence and dye breakdown.
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Aidan Gageler Into the Sun Aidan Gageler Into the Sun
Aidan Gageler
Into the Sun, 2025
ANSCO colour film that expired in November 1953, dye sublimation on aluminium 120 x 96 x 3 cmInto the Sun is ANSCO daylight balanced colour film that expired in November 1953 that was sourced from the USA. Without prior exposure or manipulation, the film is tray processed in colour negative chemistry in complete darkness. The resulting image, while made using traditional practices, is unconventional in its representation. It bears the scars of 70+ years of oxidation, environmental influence and dye breakdown.
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Christine Goerner The Beckoning Backcountry Christine Goerner The Beckoning Backcountry
Christine Goerner
The Beckoning Backcountry, 2025
Framed archival pigment print 80 x 120 x 4 cmThis work captures the concept of the psychological fog of depression through a distant wilderness. Layered, scorched foreground branches represent intrusive thoughts, while chaotic dry-brush textures mimic a mind at war, creating cognitive static. Through this veil, a beckoning yet inaccessible landscape of mist-shrouded eucalyptus dissolves into the distance. Together, these elements visualise the isolation—feeling present but trapped behind a suffocating mental screen.
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Petrina Hicks Spinner of Fate Petrina Hicks Spinner of Fate
Petrina Hicks
Spinner of Fate, 2026
Archival pigment printing on canson rag 120 x 90 x 5 cmI am drawn to subjects that occupy a threshold between beauty and unease. The spiderweb is an object of remarkable contradiction, an architecture spun from the body of its maker, almost invisible until illuminated by moisture and light. Here, the web becomes an extension of the human form, echoing the intricate networks that shape identity, memory and desire.
Spinner of Fate also references mythological traditions in which destiny is woven, spun or threaded into existence.
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Mark Kimber Vienwood intervention Mark Kimber Vienwood intervention
Mark Kimber
Vienwood_intervention, 2026
archival pigment print on photo rag 70 x 60 cmThis work deliberately unsettles the conventions of landscape photography. A daylight scene is transformed through long exposure and artificial illumination into an ambiguous nocturnal space where temporal certainty collapses. The saturated red light fractures natural description, while the extended exposure records duration rather than an instant. Chemical staining, splashes, and material degradation further disrupt photography’s claim to verisimilitude, asserting the print as a physical object
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Kim Lehman Bloodlines Kanamaluka Kim Lehman Bloodlines Kanamaluka
Kim Lehman
Bloodlines (Kanamaluka), 2026
Pigment print on Hahnemühle mould-made watercolour paper 90 x 120 cmBloodlines (Kanamaluka) is my attempt to understand my Aboriginal ancestry in relation to Tasmania’s colonial history. Using transformed satellite imagery*, I reworked the Kanamaluka estuary and Launceston into a darkened photographic field where black earth suggests settlement and sovereignty, while the red estuary evokes my Aboriginal bloodline, spilled blood, survival and connection. For me, this confluence is where personal and territorial histories meet and remain unsettled. * © 2026 Airbus
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Asher Milgate day and night shall not cease Asher Milgate day and night shall not cease
Asher Milgate
day and night shall not cease, 2025
Silver Gelatin Print, machine sewn nylon thread and perforated 54 x 64 x 3 cmDay and Night Shall Not Cease brings together multiple observations within a single image, challenging photography’s claim to a singular viewpoint. Constructed from torn and machine sewn analogue photographs, the work considers landscape as a space of layered understanding, where experiences, histories and relationships exist simultaneously. By holding multiple ways of seeing within the same frame, the work reflects the complexity of place & the many relationships through which it is understood.
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julie millowick Plastic in waterways is consumed by marine life who perceive it as algae or jellyfish 3 julie millowick Plastic in waterways is consumed by marine life who perceive it as algae or jellyfish 3
julie millowick
Plastic in waterways is consumed by marine life who perceive it as algae or jellyfish_3, 2025
Digital Image, Inkjet print on 100% Cotton Rag Paper 59.4 x 42 cmIn my lifetime plastic bags began as valued objects, but now microplastics contaminate our bodies, and plastic pollution is endemic. My images of plastic bags acknowledge their sometimes visual beauty which masks a toxic impact. Plastic in waterways is increasingly consumed by marine life who perceive it as algae or jellyfish. The results are often fatal. I constructed the images, using lighting and multiple exposure, to make the bags appear as if in a waterway.
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Harry Nankin Will the cosmos recall what we are forgetting 2 Southern Pleaides Harry Nankin Will the cosmos recall what we are forgetting 2 Southern Pleaides
Harry Nankin
Will the cosmos recall what we are forgetting? #2 (Southern Pleaides), 2026
Inkjet print reiterating an en plein air and a studio-made gelatine silver shadowgram film 90 x 90 cmThis image merges the cameraless shadows of cloth and cosmos. I recorded the stars by exposing a gelatine silver film to the light of the moonless Mallee night-sky pressed under an old astronomical glass negative. I cast the muslin fabric on film exposed to flash. The overlay of yarn on the universe alludes to the fragility of our torn world, entanglements we are yet to unpick, and a question: can we discern hope, solace, or even redemption in the great wilderness of the heavens?
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Kojiro Oishi Regenerations Kojiro Oishi Regenerations
Kojiro Oishi
Regenerations, 2026
Selenium Toned Gelatin Silver Print on Cotton Rag Paper 60 x 50 cmA bushfire swept through the Tyagarah Wetlands three years ago, burning for kilometres and leaving the landscape blackened and bare. Since then, grass trees and sedges have slowly re-emerged among the paperbark forest, marking the quiet resilience of the wetland.
This print was produced using layered gradations of exposure time, symbolising the passage of time and the cyclical process of destruction and regeneration.
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Rebecca Polonski Un Becoming Rebecca Polonski Un Becoming
Rebecca Polonski
Un-Becoming, 2026
Pigmented ink on linen 32 x 32 x 2 cmMy work explores the weight of youth isolation and the feeling of being unseen. I used negative images and exclusion mode, allowing the lichen to pull the gaze away from the subject to emphasise her being overlooked. This echoes how young people can feel resigned to the fringes of a crowded world. Printed on a small piece of cloth, the work forces an intimate, close viewing. Left to gather dust, the material will weather over time, physically emulating her gradual disappearance into herself.
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Jenny Pollak A line in the sand Jenny Pollak A line in the sand
Jenny Pollak
A line in the sand, 2026
Pigment Ink-jet Print, matchboxes, shelf 10 x 90 x 24 cmAs if harking back to its origins in the Blue Mountains, ash and debris from the 2019/2020 bushfires, carried one hundred kilometres down the Hawkesbury River by flooding rains, reconfigures itself on the tideline of my local beach as a series of mountain ranges. Bearing witness to the increasingly violent forces of both water and fire, I documented these black tidelines for many months, recently creating this small installation as a metaphor for our complicity around issues of global warming.
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Troy Ruffels Architechures of Connection Troy Ruffels Architechures of Connection
Troy Ruffels
Architechures of Connection, 2026
Digital Print on Composite Aluminium 70 x 120 x 3 cmWhat usually escapes perception appears as a fleeting architecture of connection. Fine strands catch the light, revealing patterns of movement and relation beyond ordinary attention. Inspired by the ballooning of spiders, the work transforms a paddock into a fragile topography of peaks and troughs, asking how photography might render visible unseen structures of interdependence and a world shaped by delicate yet resilient acts of connection.
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Eduardo Santos WHEEL OF LIGHT Eduardo Santos WHEEL OF LIGHT
Eduardo Santos
WHEEL OF LIGHT, 2025
Chromogenic Metallic Print - Face-mounted 6mm Acrylic float frame 120 x 120 x 3 cmThis work comes from photographing landscapes as I move quickly through them, each place carrying its own colour and atmosphere — from Brazil to Morocco, Ibiza, Queensland, and Laos. Arranged like a colour wheel, it questions how we perceive and remember place. Form gives way to something more felt than seen; a photographic montage that follows visual connection rather than geography. I grew up in sunlight, drawn to the way it softens edges, blurs boundaries, and settles into memory.
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Zac Tomaszewski Untitled Constructed Land 2 Zac Tomaszewski Untitled Constructed Land 2
Zac Tomaszewski
Untitled (Constructed Land) 2, 2025
expired fibre silver gelatin print, soil 40 x 50 cmConstructed Land is a site-specific project focused on a landscape that has been fractured by the surrounding infrastructure and situates landscape photography within the destructive framework of capitalist society. The images have been printed on expired fibre silver gelatin paper and then washed through a bath of soil gathered from the site. These interventions are an attempt to represent the site in non-tradition and use photography in an expanded form of documentation.
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Ann Vardanega Spirit of the Land 2 Ann Vardanega Spirit of the Land 2
Ann Vardanega
Spirit of the Land 2, 2025
digital inkjet print on cotton rag paper, framed 30 x 20 x 2 cmThis project is in response to the increased incidences of domestic and family violence. The aim was to raise awareness and to initiate conversations.
Each person photographed has been subjected to some trauma. While some bear outward scars, others' scars are hidden. The figure, embedded in the natural environment, is a metaphor for healing, for finding inner strength by stopping, engaging in self-care, and connecting with the land. This natural environment becomes a place of regeneration.
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Gabby Villalba Between Gabby Villalba Between
Gabby Villalba
Between, 2026
sunprinted cyanotype photographic assemblage on hand-coated 100% cotton paper, 240gsm 40 x 62 x 4 cm'Between' explores the experience of moving across places and ways of belonging. Through overlapping sunprinted cyanotypes, the work evokes the balance between memory and presence, distance and connection. The self-portrait emerges through layers and textures, suggesting how identity transforms through migration, time, and the relationship with new landscapes.
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Tamara Voninski Chemo graphy The Feeling of Flying Through Clouds Tamara Voninski Chemo graphy The Feeling of Flying Through Clouds
Tamara Voninski
Chemo-graphy: The Feeling of Flying Through Clouds, 2025
Type C photograph 100 x 90.5 cmI explored erosion of memory & the profound transformation of my body and psyche through chemotherapy. It is a visual self-portrait with the vivid, hallucinatory flashbacks that surged during infusions, following my cancer diagnosis. I submerged transparencies in petri dishes filled with my chemotherapy. The chemical decay altered the images irreversibly, mirroring the transformation of my own body. I call this process chemo-graphy: a fusion of medicine and memory, destruction and creation.
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Mike Wall jp03 24 interrupted views of Australian landscape Mike Wall jp03 24 interrupted views of Australian landscape
Mike Wall
jp03 _ 24 interrupted views of Australian landscape, 2026
Archival digital print 100 x 265 cmThe work submitted comes from a continuing project "Roadside Attractions". In 2023, I started photographing from the passenger seat as I travelled through the Australian landscape. The work is created with an "infra-red" digital camera and edited to false colour. I'm interested in the land and how it is used. Success and failure, care and neglect, great potential and devastating waste. In the work, "24 interrupted views", I point my lens at what is hidden. So far, the project has 8000 images.
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Lilli Waters Nagas Lanterns Lilli Waters Nagas Lanterns
Lilli Waters
Nāga’s Lanterns โคมไฟของนาค, 2025
archival pigment print on fibre rag 82.5 x 69.2 x 4 cmIn the photograph 'Nāga’s Lanterns โคมไฟของนาค' I explore my Thai heritage and ancestral mythology. This underwater still-life intertwines plants, flowers, and fish to create a tranquil, meditative scene that reflects my preoccupation with the natural world while connecting to cultural memory.
My connection to this lineage exists through fragments; vignettes, family stories, fabrics passed down, and the memory of my grandmother wearing traditional Thai dress.
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Nicole Welch Night Waning Gibbous Moon 1 June Hill End Nicole Welch Night Waning Gibbous Moon 1 June Hill End
Nicole Welch
Night - Waning Gibbous Moon, 1 June, Hill End, 2026, 2026
giclée print on archival Hahnemühle metallic fine art paper 90 x 160 cm'Night- Waning Gibbous Moon, 1 June, Hill End, 2026' was recorded by an infrared camera triggered by movement. The image captures a wombat returning to its burrow while a fox stands above it, a fleeting encounter between native and introduced species. Made in the landscape documented by the Holtermann photographers, the work uses contemporary photographic technology to reveal hidden ecological histories and the enduring legacy of colonisation.
2026 MCPP Finalists Names & Artwork Titles
| Artist Name | Artwork Title |
| Mark Neal Alday | Peel, 2026 |
| Lisa Anderson | Arctic Sublime, 2025 |
| Sandra Barnard | That Might Look Good in My Enlarger II – Cruets CMYKRGB, 2025 |
| Dane Beesley | STRUT, 2025 |
| David Bignell | Reflecting, 2026 |
| Sarah Black | Carrot Flower, 2026 |
| Patricia Casey | The Alone, 2026 |
| Peter Charuk | Collateral Atmospherics 28 18' 51'' S 153 26' 4'' E, 2026 |
| Alannah Fencker | Baroque Path, 2025 |
| Michelle Ferreira | Where the Green Seeps into the Concrete #1 Berlin, 2025 |
| Cailyn Forrest | 140720252 (From Silver Flesh), 2025 |
| Aidan Gageler | Echoes, 2025 |
| Aidan Gageler | Into the Sun, 2025 |
| Christine Goerner | The Beckoning Backcountry, 2025 |
| Petrina Hicks | Spinner of Fate, 2026 |
| Mark Kimber | Vienwood_intervention, 2026 |
| Kim Lehman | Bloodlines (Kanamaluka), 2026 |
| Asher Milgate | day and night shall not cease, 2025 |
| Julie Millowick | Plastic in waterways is consumed by marine life who perceive it as algae or jellyfish_3, 2025 |
| Harry Nankin | Will the cosmos recall what we are forgetting? #2 (Southern Pleaides), 2026 |
| Kojiro Oishi | Regenerations, 2026 |
| Jenny Pollak | A line in the sand, 2026 |
| Rebecca Polonski | Un-Becoming, 2026 |
| Troy Ruffels | Architechures of Connection, 2026 |
| Eduardo Santos | WHEEL OF LIGHT, 2025 |
| Zac Tomaszewski | Untitled (Constructed Land) 2, 2025 |
| Ann Vardanega | Spirit of the Land 2, 2025 |
| Gabby Villalba | Between, 2026 |
| Tamara Voninski | Chemo-graphy: The Feeling of Flying Through Clouds, 2025 |
| Mike Wall | jp03 _ 24 interrupted views of Australian landscape, 2026 |
| Lilli Waters | Nāga’s Lanterns โคมไฟของนาค, 2025 |
| Nicole Welch | Night - Waning Gibbous Moon, 1 June, Hill End, 2026, 2026 |