Narelle Autio

AUSTRALIA • BORN IN 1969

THE CALL OF THE OCEANS

Australia is surrounded by three of the world’s five oceans: the Indian, Southern and Pacific. Few photographers have documented the interactions between humans and the oceans as subtly as Narelle Autio.

She has spent more than 20 years capturing instants in the water, all while fulfilling assignments for various newspapers and magazines she has worked for. Her Coastal Dwellers series earned her a first prize at the World Press Photo Awards and the Leica Oskar Barnack prize in 2002. She is best known for her study of the human body interacting with water, creating images that portray people seemingly transported and distorted by their underwater environment, caught in a cloud of air bubbles that give the scene a kind of surrealist abstraction.

Autio’s photographs highlight that feeling of fascination mixed with fear we feel when swimming – whether in the ocean or a pool. They illustrate our natural attraction to water, always juxtaposed with the profound vulnerability of humans in this element. In this respect, the water holes – enigmatic oases surrounded by deserts – embody a sublime contradiction for her: a place where opposing elements converge, where mystery and the promise of a new world come together beneath the surface. In these dark waters, everything merges: light and darkness, life and death, questions and unattainable answers.

The exhibition also features images produced by the artist during her travels across Australia, along dusty roads that seem to go nowhere, but ultimately lead to one of the three oceans bordering this island-continent.

GRAND CHÊNE