Collective Visions

Photographic images are everywhere in our lives, from magazines to social media. The inventors of the medium might have been technical inventors but, from photography’s beginning in 1839, this technology has been used as a medium of personal expression.

The word ‘photography’ is derived from the Greek photo (light) and graphein (to draw).
For those of us who have chosen this medium, we are like surfers in an ocean where the waves are getting more complex and challenging to negotiate. In this analogy, the biggest technological challenge for contemporary ‘light-drawing’ involves Photoshop and artificial intelligence, or AI, where the image potential is seemingly unlimited.

Collective Visions is the first exhibition of the Photographic Imagery Collective (PIC), a recently formed Adelaide-based group of artists who are immersed in the constantly evolving potential of the photographic medium. What we have put on the walls is a small fraction of our total output as artists. The artworks presented here represent recent ideas we each have been exploring.

The majority of the group’s members have been students or lecturers at the South Australian School of Art (now part of the University of South Australia).

Photography as a mainstream medium has had a chequered history in South Australia. This is not to say that significant work in photography has not been produced here, but the medium has not been seen to be as significant as painting, sculpture, drawing, or printmaking. It is a rare occasion that the Art Gallery of South Australia shows the work of living local photographic artists.

As a group our objective is to help promote the significance of photography as an art practice and to extend the boundaries of this medium in this state.

Artworks by members of the Photographic Imagery Collective are held in major art collections in Australia, the United States and Europe. In Australia, these collections include those of the Art Gallery of South Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, The Art Gallery of Western Australia, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Gallery of Australia and Parliament House.