Past exhibitions

Tracey Moffatt is one of Australia’s most influential artists and the Art Gallery of NSW has a substantial collection of her work. This exhibition enables study of key threads and her particular use of the still and moving image.

Moffatt’s photographic series Laudanum 1998 and Plantation 2009 are related through the use of old colonial homes as locations for the playing out of fears and desires. The artist’s love of cinema and melodrama is evident, particularly in Laudanum with its references to Murnau’s expressionist 1922 film Nosferatu. Her ongoing play with the photographic medium is beautifully presented through the toned photogravures of Laudanum and the printing and painting on handmade paper in Plantation.

The montage videos (made with Gary Hillberg) Love 2003 and Other 2009 are two sides of the same coin. Love traces the evolution of romantic love to brutality in the name of love; Other narrates the explosive attraction between races, sexes and genders.