Join us for the opening event at ANCA Gallery Wednesday 16 July from 5.30pm

Hilary Wardhaugh, A Meditation of Death, 2024. This series features twelve 8x10” digitised lumen prints combined to make one large panoramic framed image.

You Cannot Trust an Open Sky is a series of works referencing cameraless photography which were made between November 2023 and the end of 2024. Using various cameraless techniques and digitisation, seven works have been created. These include two large format multi-print images, one with a sculptural element, two framed digitised lumen prints, one large sheer chiffon print which includes a projection and a series of four woodblock-mounted colour photographs. The woodblock mounted works will lay over a large 3mx3m decal of a night sky image.

Hilary Wardhaugh, Gaza Stripped, 2024, digitised lumen print, 59.4 x 42cm

In the artists words: ‘You Cannot Trust an Open Sky is a body of work that responds to what the International Court of Justice calls ‘a plausible genocide of the people of Palestine’. Much of the work uses the Maranasati meditation method to help visualise and contemplate on the nature of death. It is a mindfulness meditation bringing one to the awareness of death. Using meticulous and repetitive stencil work, multiple lumen prints were made and its hands-on, slow and organic photo making helped me with the challenges I faced when scrolling injustice and cruelty on my phone and in the media.’

Hilary Wardhaugh is an Australian photographer and artist whose work explores complex relationships including, humanity and the environment, as well as social and topical issues and political projects viewed through a feminist lens. Many of her projects involve collaborations with other photographers and artists including the #everydayclimatecrisis Visual Petition and the Loud and Luminous Project.