Anne Zahalka
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Anne Zahalka – Australian Contemporary Photographer
Australian contemporary photographer Anne Zahalka , focus her artwork on australian culture closely looking at themes such as gender roles, leisure activities and the conventions of art through postmodernism during the 1980's. Zahalkas aim was to question the stereotypes of natural and artificial tourism . Her earliest artworks show an interest in Australian leisure activities through small collages right through to large scaled images of documentary photography and theatrical artifice. Portraiture has also been an ongoing dimension of her practice. Her artworks depict landscapes and urban scenes from around the metropolitan, suburban and regional areas through a cultural postmodern frame. Her migrant background gave her a sense of difference. This is clearly evident in some of her themes of the deconstruction of mythologies promoted in iconic Australian images.
Zahalkan's series ' Bondi: Playground of the Pacific' explores and subverts the mythology and stereotypes that have evolved around Australias most famous beach Bondi , well known for its national symbolism of relaxation by white settler inhabitants. Her personal concern shown in her Bondi series have to do with place, identity and culture. Zahalka quotes , “The project looked at Bondi's status as a significant cultural site and questioned the dominant representations that mythologise and embody it.” 1995 (www.gallerynsw.gov.au/work/96.1990/).
Her aim as an artist was to force the viewer to question what Zahalka was focusing on by taking similar images from both the media and the history of Australian art, combining them to remake a contemporary piece of artwork , allowing the audience to engage with the artist emotions, through a post modernism cultural frame. Zahalkas inspiration is the celebrated Charles Meere painting Australian beach pattern ( 1938-40: Art Gallery of New South Wales). Zahalkas interest in migrants reflect her own life as...
Australian contemporary photographer Anne Zahalka , focus her artwork on australian culture closely looking at themes such as gender roles, leisure activities and the conventions of art through postmodernism during the 1980's. Zahalkas aim was to question the stereotypes of natural and artificial tourism . Her earliest artworks show an interest in Australian leisure activities through small collages right through to large scaled images of documentary photography and theatrical artifice. Portraiture has also been an ongoing dimension of her practice. Her artworks depict landscapes and urban scenes from around the metropolitan, suburban and regional areas through a cultural postmodern frame. Her migrant background gave her a sense of difference. This is clearly evident in some of her themes of the deconstruction of mythologies promoted in iconic Australian images.
Zahalkan's series ' Bondi: Playground of the Pacific' explores and subverts the mythology and stereotypes that have evolved around Australias most famous beach Bondi , well known for its national symbolism of relaxation by white settler inhabitants. Her personal concern shown in her Bondi series have to do with place, identity and culture. Zahalka quotes , “The project looked at Bondi's status as a significant cultural site and questioned the dominant representations that mythologise and embody it.” 1995 (www.gallerynsw.gov.au/work/96.1990/).
Her aim as an artist was to force the viewer to question what Zahalka was focusing on by taking similar images from both the media and the history of Australian art, combining them to remake a contemporary piece of artwork , allowing the audience to engage with the artist emotions, through a post modernism cultural frame. Zahalkas inspiration is the celebrated Charles Meere painting Australian beach pattern ( 1938-40: Art Gallery of New South Wales). Zahalkas interest in migrants reflect her own life as...