PHOTO 2022 - New Photographers James Makin Gallery Curated by Photo Australia
In 2022, Photo Australia and James Makin Gallery presented the opening of New Photographers, a highlight of PHOTO 2022 that showcased some of Victoria's most exciting emerging photographers. This exhibition featured seven artists, each bringing fresh perspectives to the human experience, photography, and visual culture. New Photographers included work by Isabella Darcy, J Davies, João Marco Deloie, Rachel Main, Olivia Mròz, Jake Nemirovsky, and Jahkarli Romanis.
If being abject is distant, is other, is not something normative society wishes to face, then weaponising that abjection, emphasising it and making it impossible to ignore, is a radical act. We wear the abject like an armour, refusing respectability politics and the normalising process. In this work, the abject becomes personal and weaponised. (Shields, 2016)
Manipulating my figures through layers of distortion and erasure, my works highlight sexual empowerment as a means of self-affirmation, self-repair and liberation. In speaking to embodied trauma and celebrating acceptance, the collaging components in my work connect to structural dissociation and parts psychology.
Editing my artworks on my phone is an important aspect of my process. This instant access to this digital tactile environment allows me to be casual about my process and enter flow state whenever I need. It acts as a way of unpacking, as a way of grounding, regulating and merging parts, as a way of growing, learning, nourishing and stimulating.
