Anne Zahalka

AUSTRALIA • BORN IN 1957

FRAGMENTS OF WILD LIFE

It’s hard to sum up Anne Zahalka’s forty-year career in a single exhibition. This artist’s work is held in all major collections in Australia such as The Australian National Gellery or the National Gallery of Victoriain. She made a name for herself on the Australian art scene with her eclectic series, which range from still life to hyper-realistic portraits and even scenes from the natural world. She says that main aim of her work is to explore cultural stereotypes and use humour to challenge them. She embraces the themes of identity, belonging, loss and the passing of time. Here, the focus is on her approach to the natural world.

In her latest work, Future Past Present Tense, for example, she revisits the notion of diorama: a panoramic painting on canvas ; it is a three dimensionally constructed museum display with taxidermied animals and artificial plants created in the foreground, usually presented in darkened rooms to give the illusion of reality and movement through the play of light. Anne Zahalka has dusted off these compositions, nowadays found in old museums, and inserted the original diorama makers – the scientists, illustrators and craftsmen who produced them – into the scenes. Inspired both by the naturalists of yesteryear and by fictional artists, she uses photography to draw attention to the drastic changes in Tasmanian ecosystems and the role of humans in the degradation, or preservation, of this environment. The animals she portrays are threatened by urbanisation, by the damaging effects of the climate, by our own folly.

In these images, exhibited for the first time in France, Zahalka constantly manipulates and exploits the past to better understand the present and thus perhaps provide insight into the future. Through them, we are encouraged to reflect on the ways in which we interact with the world – and the world we leave for future generations.

RUE LA FAYETTE