Tracey Moffatt

Inspired by the 1955 classic Australian film Jedda, and sharing similar aesthetics to Something More, it tells the story of an Aboriginal woman forced to care for her ageing white mother.

Tracey Moffatt (born 12 November 1960) is an Indigenous Australian artist who primarily uses photography and video.

Moffatt was born in Brisbane in 1960 to a white father and an Aboriginal mother.

At age three she was fostered out of her family, growing up as the eldest of three daughters in a white family and often left to look after her foster sisters.

It is one of Moffatt's larger series of photographs and takes its visual ideas from Italian modernist cinema Accattone (1961) by Pier Paolo Pasolini.

The story relies on a triangular mixed-race relationship.

Of this work Moffatt stated: 'My work is full of emotion and drama, you can get to that drama by using a narrative, and my narratives are usually very simple, but I twist it ... there is a storyline, but ...

there isn't a traditional beginning, middle and end.'

Moffatt holds a degree in visual communications from the Queensland College of Art, graduating in 1982, and received an honorary doctorate in 2004.

Moffatt's first short film was Nice Coloured Girls, made in 1987.

It is a 16-minute story of three young Aboriginal women as they cruise Sydney's King's Cross entertainment district looking for fun, presented in cut-away context with the historical oppression of Indigenous women by white men.

Gail Mabo acted in this film, and also danced in and choreographed another of Moffatt's short films, Watch Out (1987).

Commissioned by the Murray Art Museum Albury and shot in Link Studios in Wodonga, Something More (1989) is a photographic series composed of six vibrant Cibachrome colour prints and three black-and-white prints.

It is a now iconic series of photographs that built Moffatt's first widespread public attention, each of which borrows from film language to construct what is described as "an enigmatic narrative of a young woman looking for more out of life than the circumstances of her violent rural upbringing."

Night Cries (1989/1990) is one of Moffatt's best-known films.

Moffatt's photographic series 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 referenced the photojournalism and photo essays of Life magazine accompanied by captions.

While the words are compelling, they don't explain the images, indeed they tend to add to their enigmatic nature as though more information is a further dead end.

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.

Like Something More, Up in the sky employs the theme of race and violence, displaying a loose narrative set against the backdrop of a remote town, 'a place of ruin' and devastation populated by misfits and minor characters.

In 2000, Moffatt's work was amongst those by eight individual or collaborative groups of Indigenous 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:

"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 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.

Adventure 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.

Under 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 Portraits explores the idea of 'celebrity' among people in her immediate social circle – family members, fellow artists, her dealer – through 'glamorised' renderings of their faces using computer technology, repetitive framing and bright colours.

In 2008 Moffatt held her "first substantial exhibition to date" at Dia Art Foundation in the United States, featuring the photo series Up in the Sky (1997).

In 2017 she represented Australia at the 57th Venice Biennale with her solo exhibition, "My Horizon".

Her works are held in the collections of the Tate, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of South Australia and Art Gallery of New South Wales.

She currently lives in Sydney and New York City.

Though she is best known for her photographic works, Moffatt has created numerous films, documentaries and videos.

Her work often focuses on Australian Aboriginal people and the way they are understood in cultural and social terms.

In 2017 Moffatt was selected to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale for her solo exhibition "My Horizon", which was curated by Natalie King.

In 2020, Moffatt was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society.