The Mullins Australian Conceptual Photography Prize (MACPP) offers a major Prize of $10,000 cash, plus two other sponsored awards in the form of vouchers. Canberran Judy Parker has been announced, unanimously by the judges, as the winner of the major prize of $10,000 cash.
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They described her winning photograph as a strong, graphic abstract image. The framed print of the image has been acquired by Magnet Galleries.
Parker's concept statement for the image read: "Recently I took a series of photographs of the side panels of a large open container at a local recycling centre. The markings had a wonderfully strong graphic quality, red rust-lines on a silver-painted surface: a calligraphy of wear and tear.
"When I processed my images, I was intrigued by the way sections of the random patterns suggested a series of semi-abstract coastal landscapes, each quite different. I modified three of these to reinforce the reference and combined them as a triptych. Our minds are not limited to the literal. They can equally reidentify and reimagine."
Following her first solo photography exhibition, Home and Grown: Connecting the Visual at the CSIRO Discovery Centre Gallery, Susan Parsons (in an August 2019 Kitchen Garden column in this newspaper) wrote about Parker finding artistic beauty in vegetables.
She noted that "Judy Parker has a fine design eye and a sense of humour". Those observations were confirmed to the MACPP opening audience after she was announced as the winner.
Responding to the announcement, Parker noted that one definition of conceptual photography is that you might start with an idea and try to communicate it.
She takes images because she likes lines and shapes. After taking this, it was a delicious discovery to find the way her mind interpreted it.
Another image taken at the same time was straight out of a sketching study she had to do in art school, trying to imitate an artist's style.
She saw studies Rembrandt had done of a fishing trawler. A little piece on the side of the dumpster could easily have been from that.
Thinking about this, Parker decided she has a sideways mind - sees one thing, then immediately something else, and so on. That, she believes, is the most exciting thing about working in photography.
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Parker taught art, graphic design and photography at various stages over 30 years, talking to other people about their images, responding to them, giving and receiving feedback means she has had the occupational reason to be practicing, looking and thinking for a huge amount of her life.
The groups she works with in photography now are also very stimulating and she loves that. She has returned to the dumpster site and plans to become a "dumpsterologist" for the rest of her life.
All the works in the exhibition can be seen in a virtual gallery created by Magnet Galleries. There is a link to it on their website: magnet.org.au. After exploring that gallery, you can vote for the People's Choice Award.
