Alexis with moon, 2024. ‘In this portrait, acclaimed Waanyi author Alexis Wright is lit solely by moonlight. As Alexis is a storyteller who dares to imagine future cosmologies in these dystopian times, I sought to pair her with the elemental power of the moon, a symbol of dreams and illumination.’ Photograph: Amos Gebhardt‘Micky is my cousin. It’s the middle of the wet season and in between fishing places, we were all relaxing when this beetle dropped onto his face.
‘I work with my hands, doing important Ngangkari work. I’m helping people with my hands all the time. My father, he was a famous Ngangkari, but he passed away a long time ago. He taught me everything I know about healing people. He put the special healing properties into my hands. When people see my photo, they will learn about my story, and about all the important work that Ngangkaris do.
‘I had the opportunity to visit the studio of Tom Polo, an Australian abstract painter whose works are full of vibrant colours and shapes. I wanted to capture his essence in a portrait that would reflect his artistic vision. I didn’t plan anything in advance, but rather let my creativity and instinct lead the way. We tried different poses until we stumbled upon the idea of abstracting his face.
‘What is the place of photography in a world oversaturated with images? Instead of creating, I wanted to destroy my images, to delete everything on my camera roll. Inspired by queer photographer Jimmy DeSana, I turned to my photographs with a knife and began to cut into them. Queer representation and identity politics has become tokenising and flat. I wanted to rip into the surface of the image to reach something deeper.
‘This is a portrait of Dr Christian Thompson AO, a contemporary visual artist and a Bidjara man of the Kunja Nation. The gold lightly painted across his face is a reference to the lesser-known side of his Chinese-Australian heritage and to “Xin Jin Shan”, which is how the first wave of Chinese immigrants referred to the gold rush in Australia.
Entertainment Entertainment Latest News, Entertainment Entertainment Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: GuardianAus - 🏆 1. / 98 Read more »
Source: 7NewsSydney - 🏆 16. / 63 Read more »