The 2022 William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize’s $10,000 Wai Tang Commission has been announced. Congratulations to artist Janelle Low, who will present an exhibition of work at the Monash Gallery of Art (MGA), Melbourne, in 2023.
The William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize is an important annual survey of contemporary photographic practice in Australia. Every year MGA invites artists to submit photo-based media, including analogue and digital photography, created over the last year for consideration. From the finalists, the Wai Tang Commissioning Award recipient is selected.
Janelle Low, Untitled III (from the family archives), 2021, from the series ‘Disintegrate’, pigment inkjet print, 24k gold leaf, 18 x 12cm. Courtesy the artist and THIS IS NO FANTASY, Naarm/Melbourne
Low will receive meaningful assistance to present an exhibition that will coincide with the 2023 Bowness Photography Prize exhibition season, with one work acquired into MGA’s significant collection of Australian photographs. Low states that her work in this year’s Bowness Photography Prize,
“belongs to an ongoing series exploring familial ties, cultural loss and the nature of memory. Reworking archival family photographs, the processes used oscillate between taking control and letting go of control to evoke a sense of intimacy while simultaneously embodying distance as well. Side by side the works create a ‘family album’ of sorts, and reflect upon the space between my cultural heritage, Western upbringing and deeply rooted feelings of filial piety.”
Low has exhibited nationally and internationally, and her works are held in both public and private collections. In 2013 she became the second female and youngest winner of the National Photographic Portrait Prize presented by the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra and was selected as a finalist in the Bowness Photography Prize in both 2017 and again in 2022. Low is represented by THIS IS NO FANTASY, Naarm/Melbourne.
“I am honoured to be selected for the Wai Tang Commissioning Award. This opportunity has come at what feels like a significant point in my practice and I am grateful and excited for this opportunity to realise a body of work I’ve been thinking about for a long time.”
— Janelle Low
More information: mga.org.au
