Tyler Rollins Fine Art is pleased to present Portals, a solo exhibition by Tracey Moffatt, taking place from November 7 through February 1, 2020. The exhibition marks the international debut of a new body of work, her first since her widely acclaimed solo presentation for the Australian Pavilion in the 2017 Venice Biennale. Portals comprises a series of six photographic diptychs, each telling a “short story” imbued with mystery and nostalgia, and featuring the artist herself in various guises. The images were shot in remote, unidentified locations using low lighting and a low shutter speed, and were then subtly manipulated to achieve ghost-like effects. The result is a series of powerful images that embody an eerie dream world, filled with wonder and foreboding.
One of today’s leading international visual artists working in photography, film and video, Moffatt is known as a powerful visual storyteller, and many of her works have achieved iconic status both in her home country of Australia and around the world. She approaches all her work with a film director’s eye for setting and narrative, and her photographs play with a dynamic array of printing processes. Born in Brisbane, Australia, in 1960, she studied visual communications at the Queensland College of Art, from which she graduated in 1982. Since her first solo exhibition at the Australian Centre for Photography in 1989, she has participated in well over 500 exhibitions around the world. She first gained significant critical acclaim when her short film Night Cries was selected for official competition at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. She was selected for the international section of the 1997 Venice Biennale and was also featured in the biennials of Sydney (1993, 1996, 2008), Singapore (2011), São Paulo (1998) and Gwangju (1995). She was based for twelve years in New York City, where many of her career landmarks took place. A major exhibition at the Dia Center for the Arts in 1997-98 solidified her international reputation. Her photographic series Scarred for Life was exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum and her video LOVE at the Brooklyn Museum in 2007. Also that year, she received the Infinity Award for art photography, selected by an international panel at the International Center of Photography. A retrospective exhibition of her video work was on view at the Bronx Museum in 2011, and in 2012 the Museum of Modern Art presented a comprehensive retrospective of her films and videos, featuring screenings of all her major moving image works and a ten-day series of artist talks at the museum.
Moffatt was honored with the Australia Council Visual Arts Award in 2013, and in 2016 she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in recognition of her “distinguished service to the visual and performing arts as a photographer and film maker, and as a mentor and supporter of, and role model for, Indigenous artists.” Her works are included in numerous major museum collections, including: Museum of Modern Art, New York; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Brooklyn Museum; Centre Pompidou; Stedelijk Museum; Tate Modern; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; and the National Gallery of Australia.
