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White Wedding In Bathtub 2009-2024

From the series 'Taken' my work seeks to merge the critical link between memory and the natural environment. Examining cross-culturalism and cultural preservation through the use of instant film, digital photography and hand crafted Eucalyptus dyed paper, connecting to Country and Traditional Owners

Awards

Photographer of the Year Contest

2024

Silver

Conceptual

Professional

White Wedding In Bathtub 2009-2024

From the series 'Taken' my work seeks to merge the critical link between memory and the natural environment. Examining cross-culturalism and cultural preservation through the use of instant film, digital photography and hand crafted Eucalyptus dyed paper, connecting to Country and Traditional Owners

About Artist

Claire Letitia Reynolds

My work blurs the boundaries between art, social commentary, and documentary. It is driven by a deep reverence for Country, community, and the power of untold stories. I work across analogue and digital photography, often pushing the limits of both, incorporating elements of hand-dyed papers made from eucalyptus leaves and bark, layering memory with intervention, past with present, survival with imagination. For over two decades, my practice has evolved through solo and group exhibitions worldwide, artist residencies, and collaborations with some of the most influential voices in contemporary art. I was represented by 555 Gallery in Boston, MA, until its closure in 2020, and from 2009 to 2017, I worked as a digital artist to Tracey Moffatt. My project WE ARE ONE (2021–2023) was supported by grants from RADF, Arts Queensland, and the Australia Council, and exhibited in QLD, ACT, and VIC. My work has been published, projected, installed, and reimagined across galleries, books, islands, and beyond. Brutalism in the Bush Brutalism has long fascinated me—not just as an architectural movement, but as a way of seeing. It speaks of starkness, survival, and the collision of forces—natural and man-made, history and presence, harm and hope. Brutalism in the Bush is an ode to the savage beauty of the Australian outback. These images, captured in Arrernte Country within Munga-Thirri (The Simpson Desert), first emerged in 2009, when I was teaching photography to young women in community. For years, they lay dormant—until October 2023, when I uncovered them again, seeing them with new eyes. I began weaving them with my hand-dyed paper practice, infusing each image with the elemental colours of Country—earth, fire, ochre, sky. I wanted to challenge the traditional visual language of the outback—to move away from the clichés of traditional landscape photography, instead presenting skies of yellow, green, and brown, pushing the landscape into a surreal, dreamlike space. At its core, this series is about memory, intervention, and survival. It speaks to the ruins of history, both literal and metaphorical—the disregarded, the erased, the unseen. It is a meditation on the government’s 2007 Northern Territory “Intervention”—a moment in time when Indigenous communities were blanketed with shame, labelled before they could speak. The images evoke a fractured world—one where brutality is present, but reimagined. I envision these places as portals to another time—where the Dreaming is still alive, shifting, shaping, resisting, and empowering. The titles of this series are in Eastern Arrernte, translated into English. 10% of profits will be donated to Tapatjatjaka Art & Craft Centre, Titjikala, Northern Territory, Australia.

Claire Letitia Reynolds

Photographic Areas of Focus

Landscapes, People, Photojournalism, Portrait

Location

Australia

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