Tracey Moffatt
Encyclopedia
Tracey Moffatt is an Australian artist who primarily uses photography
and video
.
Born in Brisbane
in 1960, she holds a degree in visual communications from the Queensland College of Art, graduating in 1982.
Her works are held in the collections of the Tate
, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
, National Gallery of Australia
, and Art Gallery of New South Wales
.
In the first image of the series More #1 Moffatt appears in the centre of frame in an Asian dress set against a hut in which a woman in a white dress leans against the door. Two children look on and a man in a coolie hat is seen in the background. The backdrop is painted and the image has the look of a film set. Moffatt's image seeks to confuse and disturb meanings of cultural identification while questioning the authenticity of the presentation by reinforcing its own 'fake' construction. The subsequent images in the series present variations on these ideas.
Moffatt's photographic series of works such as Pet Thang (1991) and Laudanum (1998) returned to the themes of Something More exploring mixed and sometimes obscure references to issues of sexuality, history, representation and race. Other series of images, notably Scarred for Life (1994) and Scarred for Life II (1999) again tackled these themes but which took the form of book or magazine illustrations with captions offering ironic and humorous commentaries on the images..
As her work progressed over the next decade, Moffatt began to explore narratives in more gothic settings. In Up in the Sky [1998] the artist's work again used a sequential narrative but instead of using fantasy settings, a story concerning Australia's "stolen generation
" - Indigenous Australian children who were taken from their families and forcibly relocated under Government policy - was enacted and performed on location in Queensland's outback. In Invocations (2000) Moffatt used a non-specific locale for an ambiguous psychodrama which recalled Southern American fiction and fantasy films of the early 20th Century.
In 2000, Moffatt's work was amongst those by eight individual or collaborative groups of Indigneous Australian artists included in a major exhibition of Australian Indigenous art held in the prestigious Nicholas Hall
at the Hermitage Museum
in Russia. The exhibition received a positive reception from Russian critics, one of whom wrote:
Moffatt's work since 2000 has retreated from specific locales and subject matter and become more explicitly concerned with fame and celebrity. Her series http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/26/Tracey_Moffatt/12/32597/Fourth [2001] used images of sportspeople from the 2000 Summer Olympic Games coming fourth in their various competitions. Seeking to underline their outsider status, the images are treated so only the ignoble fourth place holder is highlighted.
2003 saw Moffatt named by Australian Art Collector magazine as one of the country's 50 most collectible artists.
Series [2004] is Moffatt's most unabashed fantasy series using painted backdrops, costumes and models [including the artist herself] to enact a soap opera like drama of doctors, nurses and pilots in a tropical setting. The Sign of Scorpio [2005] is a series 40 images in which the artist takes on the persona of famous women born - like the artist - under the zodiac sign of Scorpio. The series reiterates the artist's ongoing interests in celebrity, alternate personas and constructed realities. Moffatt's 2007 series http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/26/Tracey_Moffatt/531/Portraits explores the idea of 'celebrity' among people in her immediate social circle - family members, fellow artists, her dealer - through 'glamorized' renderings of their faces using computer technology, repetitive framing and bright colors.
and a feature film
. The short films rely on the stylistic genre
features of experimental cinema - usually including non realist narrative scenarios often shot on sound stages echoing her work in still photography
. Early works such as Nice Coloured Girls and Night Cries also use sound mixes that reinforce the 'fakeness' of the settings and use well-worn experimental cinema devices such as audio field recordings and low tones to provide atmosphere. Her short video works such as Artist [2000] use the cut up methodology of taking images from pre-existing sources and re-editing them into ironic commentaries on the material - Artist for example providing a commentary on the cliched role of the artist in Hollywood cinema, and her Doomed [2007] - made in collaboration with the artist Gary Hillberg - a collection of scenes of destruction from disaster movies. Her feature film Bedevil is a trio of narratives themed around spirits and hauntings.
. Moffatt also makes explicit references to Australian art history, drawing parallels between Indigenous history and the recording the landscape by non-Indigenous artists by quoting artists such as Frederick McCubbin
's The Pioneer. This film was selected for official competition at the Cannes
Film Festival in 1990.
, Bedevil is composed of three self-contained narratives with recurring visual motifs. In the first story Mister Chuck Moffatt uses the character of an American soldier, in the second part Choo Choo Choo Choo railway tracks connect a series of events and in the final part Lovin' the Spin I'm in a landlord who evicts a family from a house. The images were partly inspired by memories from her early life.
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
and video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
.
Born in Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
in 1960, she holds a degree in visual communications from the Queensland College of Art, graduating in 1982.
Her works are held in the collections of the Tate
Tate
-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...
, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles is a contemporary art museum with three locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near Walt Disney Concert Hall...
, National Gallery of Australia
National Gallery of Australia
The National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
, and Art Gallery of New South Wales
Art Gallery of New South Wales
The Art Gallery of New South Wales , located in The Domain in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, was established in 1897 and is the most important public gallery in Sydney and the fourth largest in Australia...
.
Photography
Tracey Moffatt first came to prominence in the Australian art world with her series Something More. Commissioned in 1989 by the Albury Regional Art Gallery and shot in the Link Studios in Wodonga, the series set the tone and themes of much of her later work. In a sequence of nine images, Something More is a loose narrative in which the artist puns on the possible meanings of the title and its veiled references to sadomasochism.In the first image of the series More #1 Moffatt appears in the centre of frame in an Asian dress set against a hut in which a woman in a white dress leans against the door. Two children look on and a man in a coolie hat is seen in the background. The backdrop is painted and the image has the look of a film set. Moffatt's image seeks to confuse and disturb meanings of cultural identification while questioning the authenticity of the presentation by reinforcing its own 'fake' construction. The subsequent images in the series present variations on these ideas.
Moffatt's photographic series of works such as Pet Thang (1991) and Laudanum (1998) returned to the themes of Something More exploring mixed and sometimes obscure references to issues of sexuality, history, representation and race. Other series of images, notably Scarred for Life (1994) and Scarred for Life II (1999) again tackled these themes but which took the form of book or magazine illustrations with captions offering ironic and humorous commentaries on the images..
As her work progressed over the next decade, Moffatt began to explore narratives in more gothic settings. In Up in the Sky [1998] the artist's work again used a sequential narrative but instead of using fantasy settings, a story concerning Australia's "stolen generation
Stolen Generation
The Stolen Generations were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian Federal and State government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments...
" - Indigenous Australian children who were taken from their families and forcibly relocated under Government policy - was enacted and performed on location in Queensland's outback. In Invocations (2000) Moffatt used a non-specific locale for an ambiguous psychodrama which recalled Southern American fiction and fantasy films of the early 20th Century.
In 2000, Moffatt's work was amongst those by eight individual or collaborative groups of Indigneous Australian artists included in a major exhibition of Australian Indigenous art held in the prestigious Nicholas Hall
Neva Enfilade of the Winter Palace
The Neva Enfilade of the Winter Palace, St Petersburg is a series of three large halls arranged in an enfilade along the palace's massive facade facing the River Neva....
at the Hermitage Museum
Hermitage Museum
The State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...
in Russia. The exhibition received a positive reception from Russian critics, one of whom wrote:
This is an exhibition of contemporary art, not in the sense that it was done recently, but in that it is cased in the mentality, technology and philosophy of radical art of the most recent times. No one, other than the Aborigines of Australia, has succeeded in exhibiting such art at the Hermitage.
Moffatt's work since 2000 has retreated from specific locales and subject matter and become more explicitly concerned with fame and celebrity. Her series http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/26/Tracey_Moffatt/12/32597/Fourth [2001] used images of sportspeople from the 2000 Summer Olympic Games coming fourth in their various competitions. Seeking to underline their outsider status, the images are treated so only the ignoble fourth place holder is highlighted.
2003 saw Moffatt named by Australian Art Collector magazine as one of the country's 50 most collectible artists.
Series [2004] is Moffatt's most unabashed fantasy series using painted backdrops, costumes and models [including the artist herself] to enact a soap opera like drama of doctors, nurses and pilots in a tropical setting. The Sign of Scorpio [2005] is a series 40 images in which the artist takes on the persona of famous women born - like the artist - under the zodiac sign of Scorpio. The series reiterates the artist's ongoing interests in celebrity, alternate personas and constructed realities. Moffatt's 2007 series http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/26/Tracey_Moffatt/531/Portraits explores the idea of 'celebrity' among people in her immediate social circle - family members, fellow artists, her dealer - through 'glamorized' renderings of their faces using computer technology, repetitive framing and bright colors.
Films and video work
Moffatt's work in film and video has included short films, experimental videoVideo
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
and a feature film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
. The short films rely on the stylistic genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
features of experimental cinema - usually including non realist narrative scenarios often shot on sound stages echoing her work in still photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
. Early works such as Nice Coloured Girls and Night Cries also use sound mixes that reinforce the 'fakeness' of the settings and use well-worn experimental cinema devices such as audio field recordings and low tones to provide atmosphere. Her short video works such as Artist [2000] use the cut up methodology of taking images from pre-existing sources and re-editing them into ironic commentaries on the material - Artist for example providing a commentary on the cliched role of the artist in Hollywood cinema, and her Doomed [2007] - made in collaboration with the artist Gary Hillberg - a collection of scenes of destruction from disaster movies. Her feature film Bedevil is a trio of narratives themed around spirits and hauntings.
"Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy" [1989]
Primarily concerned with a series of almost static vignettes, Night Cries reiterates many of Moffatt's visual motifs from her still photography - sets, non-acting, an evocative use of sound and music. In Night Cries Moffatt's attempts to draw ironic or romantic connotations in juxtaposition to the images and narratives, such as her use of Jimmy LittleJimmy Little
Jimmy Little AO , is an Australian Aboriginal musician, singer, songwriter and guitarist, whose career has spanned six decades. For many years he was the only Aboriginal star on the Australian music scene...
. Moffatt also makes explicit references to Australian art history, drawing parallels between Indigenous history and the recording the landscape by non-Indigenous artists by quoting artists such as Frederick McCubbin
Frederick McCubbin
Frederick McCubbin was an Australian painter who was prominent in the Heidelberg School, one of the more important periods in Australia's visual arts history....
's The Pioneer. This film was selected for official competition at the Cannes
Cannes
Cannes is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera, a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival. It is a Commune of France in the Alpes-Maritimes department....
Film Festival in 1990.
"Bedevil" [1993]
Shown at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival1993 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury :* Louis Malle * Claudia Cardinale * Inna Churikova * Judy Davis * Abbas Kiarostami * Emir Kusturica * William Lubtchansky * Tom Luddy * Gary Oldman * Augusto M...
, Bedevil is composed of three self-contained narratives with recurring visual motifs. In the first story Mister Chuck Moffatt uses the character of an American soldier, in the second part Choo Choo Choo Choo railway tracks connect a series of events and in the final part Lovin' the Spin I'm in a landlord who evicts a family from a house. The images were partly inspired by memories from her early life.