Roadworker blues, from the series Decrepit

Glen Sloggett lives and works in Melbourne. After completing a Diploma of Art at Queensland College of Art 1983, a certificate in Film Production in summer school at New York University 1985 and a Diploma in Fine Art Photography at Prahran College of TAFE 1993, he obtained a Bachelor of Media Arts (photography) from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 1996. In 2001 Sloggett won the inaugural John and Margaret Baker memorial fellowship for an emerging photographer through Albury Regional Art Gallery.

His work has been exhibited extensively within Australia including a touring exhibition with the Australian Centre for Photography, ‘New Australiana’, and at numerous locations internationally such as the 11th Asian Art Biennale 2004 in Bangladesh and more recently his works were included in the 9th Mois de la Photo, ‘Image and Imagination’, in Montreal 2005.

Sloggett has said, ‘No matter where I go, I always find places and environments that are in the process of falling down…I want to capture the last signs of optimism before inevitable disrepair.’ [‘Glen Sloggett: cheaper & deeper’, Australian Centre for Photography, exhibition brochure 2005]

It is those ‘last signs of optimism’ that carry Sloggett’s work way beyond that of the usual photographic touring through other people’s lives. Tasteless, bizarre, grimy, weird – nonetheless the subjects of his photographs are dealt with tenderly: the dolphin suit strung up in a corner in front of nylon drape is inexplicable but it is carefully hung; the arrangement of flowers, painted yellow stones, garden gnome and Buddha is equally inexplicable and is carefully tended – is it a shrine to someone or is it part of someone’s garden?

Robert Cook wrote in 2007 that, ‘Glenn Sloggett totally gets and feels and loves this world that we are either in the business of overlooking or trying to escape.’ [‘Decrepit’, Stills Gallery exhibition brochure]