The Selected Impressive Finalists’ Images of The 2021 Bowness Photography Prize

Drawing to a close by Lillian O’Neil

Lillian O’Neil’s photograph titled Drawing to a close, 2020 is the winner of the 2021 Bowness photography prize. Lillian uses photographs found in pre-digital books and magazines to create large-scale, analogue collages. The prize was established by the MGA Foundation in 2005 and is now one of the country’s richest photographic art awards.

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Introversion 2020 by Tamara Dean

“As our daily lives suddenly transformed due to Covid-19, I embraced this period of self-isolation using my photographic process as a form of escapism from my pandemic-induced anxieties.”

One hundred and twelve days of solitude by Rod McNicol

“This self-portrait was made in 2020, during Melbourne’s prolonged and very bleak second lockdown. Given my age (74) and my chronic respiratory limitations, I was strongly advised by medicos not to leave my old warehouse studio for the duration of this lockdown, with no visitors allowed except for a family member bringing supplies. Working primarily in photographic portraiture meant my choice of sitters was drastically diminished; hence this self-portrait became my sole means of expressing something of these 112 days of solitude.”

Sisterhood by Ali Tahayori

“Sisterhood speaks to the anxieties and concerns of our time and longs for intimacy and connection. My practice investigates ways in which external forces contaminate the body of the imagery and destroy its content. The source of these forces is always something that is outside the frame. By returning to an archive of family photographs, I aim to re-contextualise the traumatic history I’ve inherited. Felt in my body, yet invisible to my eyes, is the shattering experience of dissolution.”

Self-portrait by Edi Ivancic

“‘Self-portrait’ is an expression of how I felt living during the Covid-19 lockdown. An expression of mental turmoil, confusion and darkness. An expression of normal freedoms stripped away.”

Spiderman waits in Corolla by Jo Duck

“Inspired by Maeve Brennan’s 1962 short story for The New Yorker titled A mysterious parade of men, I imagined a fictional parade and photographed the peculiar men who were either participants or enthusiastic spectators.”

Jump on through (to the other side) by Paula Mahoney

“I explore the loss of my mother, who died 38 years ago and remains faceless in my memory. From the series Dis/appear II, I use myself, dressed in my dead dad’s safari suit, to perform both a lament for my parents and a metaphysical search for my mother’s face. In this work, the desert acts as an analogy for death and as a place of comfort and refuge.”

Motherhood 2021 by Jesse Harvey

“A long term series capturing motherhood.”

Multiple selves no. 2 by Rebecca Griffiths

“My art explores the fact that we each have multiple selves and that, depending on the situation, we have parts of ourselves that we show and parts that we prefer to remain hidden. This piece explores the concept of displaying both our masculine and feminine selves at the one time. It was made using digital photography, overlaid with netting and then re-photographed.”

Wenuri by Paul Blackmore

“A portrait of Wenuri with Lucy at the beach. From the series Heat which looks at a diverse and evolving Australian culture laid bare under an ever hotter sun.”

Jacob by Tony Kearney

“The portrait of Jacob Junior Nayinggul, Indigenous ranger and first-time actor from the remote Northern Territory community of Gunbalanya, was taken under a pepper tree in a back lane in Adelaide. I’d draped a black cloth over a fence and using the diffuse natural light, took two portraits with a 1950s large format camera paired with a 1940s aerial photography lens.”