150 Years: Contemporary Queensland photography
By Michael Hawker
‘150 Years: Photography in Queensland’ June 2009
A lively photographic practice emerged in Queensland through the 1980s and into the 1990s in contemporary art circles. It was often studio-based, informed by new theoretical discourses, and related to the history of visual art as much as to the various traditions of photography. This new work, which was very diverse, challenged the ways that we looked and thought about photographs, and proposed new social and artistic contexts for visual expression.
Many artists continued to be inspired by photography’s modernist traditions and concentrated on its reality-bearing functions, while others such as Marian Drew created staged scenarios in the studio, expressing an internal rather than external world. In a similar way, Joachim Froese explores issues of mortality and decay through art historical references to Dutch still-life painting. Fiona Foley, on the other hand, has used the medium to reclaim and recontextualise nineteenth-century ethnographic photographs of Indigenous Australians.
A newer, younger generation of contemporary Queensland photographers is creating even more diverse and varied approches to photography. Martin Smith carves text from his photographs that is as important as his images in the final work, while Francesca Rosa has photographed a decomposing house some months after its destruction by Cyclone Larry, the photograph becoming a way of classifying and categorising, a modern forensic tool of investigation.
This selection — part of ‘150 Years: Photography in Queensland’ (2009) — demonstrates only a few examples of the proliferation of artistic approaches to photography over the last two decades. Challenging conventions and reinterpreting photographic traditions, photographers in Queensland continue to invigorate the medium with fresh energy and relevance.
Connected objects
![Fiona Foley Artwork Badtjala woman this artwork made of Gelatin silver photograph on paper, created in 1994-01-01](/index.php/system/files/styles/large/private/object-images/2001.101a-c_013_composite_3.jpg?itok=9ds03Wf7)
Badtjala woman 1994
- FOLEY, Fiona - Artist
- WEIGHT, Greg - Photographer
![Martin Smith Artwork Hell's bells this artwork made of Giclée print on paper, created in 2007-01-01](/index.php/system/files/styles/large/private/object-images/2007.238a-_001_detail_3.jpg?itok=eY2v2Wdd)
Hell's bells 2007
- SMITH, Martin - Creator
![Martin Smith Artwork Yellow and very spacey this artwork made of Giclée print on paper, created in 2007-01-01](/index.php/system/files/styles/large/private/object-images/2007.239a-_001_detail_4.jpg?itok=7agJE0U1)
Yellow and very spacey 2007
- SMITH, Martin - Creator
Related artists
DREW, Marian
1960
- present
Full profile for DREW, Marian
FROESE, Joachim
1963
- present
Full profile for FROESE, Joachim
FOLEY, Fiona
1964
- present
Full profile for FOLEY, Fiona
SMITH, Martin
1971
- present
Full profile for SMITH, Martin
ROSA, Francesca
1971
- present
Full profile for ROSA, Francesca
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