Wayne Quilliam - Photos

Wayne Quilliam is one of the most prominent Aborigine photographic artists of the Australian continent with more than 100 solo and group exhibitions in Australia, Europe, Asia and the USA.

1963 born in Tasmania, he left this little island in 1979 to join the navy and explore the world. Wayne bought his first camera in Hong Kong while he was a 17 year old Navy communications officer, but didn't get serious about photography until he was 21. In 2008 he works and lives in Melbourne when not travelling to some of the most remote locations in Australia and touring the globe with his images. He continues to forge new expressions and dimensions in photographs through his culture and anticipates major growth in contemporary Indigenous art.

Traditional Aboriginal stories and tales have influenced the artist's work to become increasingly intense, mysterious, and probing. Quilliam explains, “To interpret my work is akin to demystify the link between myth and reality, I am interested in the process of covering and uncovering the human element of nature; to find depth, meaning and perhaps even a revelation that we are the vision of a ‘creator’.”

Quilliam’s world and iconography is full with strong metaphor exploring spirituality and sublime creation seen from a natural point of view. By manipulating the human form with images from nature he seemingly impregnates his photographs with an essence of life and spirituality.

Only at the first view his works are what they seem to be: heads, figures, landscapes and dances. They follow a second sense level of the very traditional culture and its picture language, which tells ethic histories of a culture that did never know literature and therefore expresses itself in pictures full of signs and symbols. Signs and symbols, refering to the alliance of human beings and animals, landscape and figures, stones and organic life, and telling stories for generations. On this way the photographer Quilliam makes an issue out of creation and history.

The artist covers, hides and camouflages his works to deconstruct, create and recreate a naked reality. Encapsulated by spirituality of nature, the artist deliberately covers and exposes photographs to reveal tensions between the act of representation and reality. “I'm intrigued by the differing perceptions of nudity and the role it plays in modern society” he adds.

Kudditji Kngwarreye --->