Photography at Sydney Contemporary — Artwork Information Australia

Each yr, Sydney Contemporary publicizes its largest version to this point. This Spring, 116 exhibitors from Australia, New Zealand and past current greater than 1000 new works by 500 modern artists. As the honest’s rising scale dangers overwhelming even probably the most seasoned guests, organisers proceed to introduce methods to create factors of focus. Amid the vitality of Carriageworks, curated sections throughout key classes deliver construction: Installation, Works on Paper, Emerging, and, most just lately, Photography.

In 2025, the honest introduces the primary version of Photo Sydney, curated by Sandy Edwards, photographer and former director of Stills Gallery. This new sector responds on to collector demand, says Sydney Contemporary Founder and Co-Owner Tim Etchells, noting that guests have lengthy been “asking to see a wider representation of photographic work.”

Edwards collaborated with a committee to pick the galleries and artists, bringing collectively the State Library of NSW’s Margot Riley, Merilyn Fairskye, an artist and former board member of the Australian Centre for Photography, artwork historian Gael Newton and author and curator Alasdair Foster.

For Edwards, vary was important: “I wanted all forms of photography to be represented,” she tells me. Together with the committee, works by artists throughout generations and genres had been chosen. Documentary, photojournalism, and artwork images are included. The inclusion of documentary images was significantly necessary for Edwards, because it represents “the foundation of photography and art photography, which blossomed in the 1980s.”

Edwards specialises within the medium, spending the primary 15 years of her profession behind the digicam earlier than an extended tenure as gallerist on the now-closed Stills Gallery in Paddington. For Sydney Contemporary, she says, “I drew on my hard-won knowledge of the rich pool of photographers in Sydney and across Australia.”

Highlights of the curated presentation embody Head On Photo Festival’s inclusion of William Yang with an oeuvre that captures many years of Sydney life and identification, alongside the a lot much less candid and richly staged works of Samantha Everton. For OLSEN’s contribution, Alexia Sinclair presents a brand new photomontage sequence The Age of Wonder. “There are also some exquisite doubles in one stall”, notes Edwards, “Tina 5Ash and Caterina Pacialeo, then John Gollings and John Marmaras each lengthy skilled industrial photographers who’re exhibiting their private work. Another double is Catherine Cloran and Zorica Purlija, each that includes totally different viewpoints of nature. Much anticipated is the presentation by Sandy Barnard, considered one of Sydney’s grasp printers, who unveils her personal private works.

The presentation from Canberra-based PhotoEntry brings collectively work by Odette England, Sammy Hawker, Nico Krijno, Phuong Nguyen Le, and Kai Wasikowski. “The artists were chosen for how they expand photography’s possibilities,” says Gabrielle Hall-Lomax, PhotoEntry curator. “From collage and digital techniques to working directly with natural processes. Seen together, their works reveal the medium as textured, experimental, and open to transformation.”

Beyond trying, what of amassing? On this, Edwards is pragmatic. “Ask questions,” she says. “Follow your instincts. Educate yourself. Photography has a long and rich history, it’s worth knowing where your interests sit inside that.”

She suggests starting with rising artists because the sector is stuffed with them. Framing, paper inventory, scale, and course of must also kind a part of the conversations that occur in-situ.

Collector demand for extra images aligns with an age characterised by an insatiable starvation for photographs. As we lean in to look at a painted or drawn work proven elsewhere on the honest, the brushstrokes, pencil smudges, and texture of the floor provide one thing of the method, revealing traces of the artist’s hand. Photographic surfaces, nonetheless, give few clues about how the picture was made; materials selections typically lie behind the digicam, with the artist.

At Photo Sydney, the prospect to talk straight with artists and listen to the tales behind the pictures will present uncommon perception into their artistic selections.

“It’s a great playing field,” Edwards says. “This kind of intimacy with the work, and with its makers, is rare.”

Sydney Contemporary
Carriageworks
(Sydney/Eora NSW)
11—14 September 2025