anne zahalka artwork

anne zahalka

artist in residence 2017

Anne Zahalka is one of Australia’s most highly regarded photo-media artists having exhibited extensively in Australia and overseas for more than thirty years. Her work has often explored cultural stereotyping and has challenged these with a humorous and critical voice. She deconstructs familiar images and re-presents them to allow other figures and stories to be told that reflect on cultural diversity, gender and difference within Australian society.

Anne has been the recipient of numerous awards and commissions, winning the Macarthur Cook Art Prize (2008), the National Photographic Prize (2007) and the Leopold Godowsky Photography Award in Boston, (2005). Sydney Airport commissioned a major photographic project titled Welcome to Sydney, (2003) portraying migrants against the backdrop of Sydney’s multicultural community. She was awarded another portrait commission in 2014 to mark the 25th Anniversary of Parliament House in Canberra and chose to represent the employees (not the politicians) in the building and the environments they work in.

Anne lives and works in Newtown, Sydney and has held more than 40 solo exhibitions and been curated into over 140 group exhibitions in Australian and internationally including Leisureland at the Australian Embassy in Washington, 2007; Three Australian Photographers: Bill Henson, Tracey Moffatt and Anne Zahalka, GEM/Fotomuseum, Den Haag, The Netherlands, 2007; Supernatural Artificial at the Chulalangkorn Art Centre, Bangkok, Thailand, 2005, and the Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, 2004; and Photographica Australis, exhibited at the Sala del Canal de Isabel II in Madrid, Spain, and travelled Asia, 2003. In 2007-08 a major retrospective, Hall of Mirrors: Anne Zahalka Portraits 1987-2007, was opened at the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Melbourne and toured to the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, Warrnambool Art Gallery, Ipswich Art Gallery and Bathurst Regional Art Gallery.

Zahalka is represented in major national and international collections including National Gallery of Australia; Art Gallery of New South Wales; National Portrait Gallery; Australian Bicentennial Collection; National Art Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand; Parliament House Collection; National Gallery of Victoria; Sir Elton John Collection; Deutsche Bank Collection; International Polaroid Collection, USA; Visart, New York; and numerous other regional galleries, universities and private collections in Australia and abroad.

Anne Zahalka is represented by ARC ONE Gallery.