Based in Canberra and living on Yuin Country in the Southern Tablelands, Judith is a photographer, poet and visual artist with a background in music. Her interdisciplinary practice is deeply rooted in storytelling, place, and cultural exchange, and reflects her ongoing commitment to exploring themes of connection, identity, and displacement.
Photographically, her signature work has been developed through a strikingly original photographic technique known as Lumachrome glass printing – a process she largely invented herself. What makes it remarkable is its ability to breathe life into the lifeless, rendering road-killed animals and birds with a haunting sense of presence.
Image © Judith Nangala Crispin
The images are not constructed with paint or traditional media, but with light alone, which manifests colours and forms beyond the control of the artist. Her method involves placing found materials – blood, clay, sticks, leaves, seeds, ochres, and resin – alongside the bodies of dead animals or birds on light-sensitised fibre paper. These compositions are exposed to sunlight for 24 to 36 hours as the sun traces its arc across the sky. The resulting prints reveal unexpected bursts of colour. Over these, Crispin layers cliché-verre glass plates, coated with wax or paint resists and scratched with wire to create drawn elements.
Image © Judith Nangala Crispin
At times, she applies electric currents to the plates, causing ochres to crystalize in intricate patterns. For finer detail, she employs chemigram techniques, painting chemicals such as selenium or copper chloride directly onto feathers, scales, or fur. She named the process Lumachrome glass printing – a nod to both the light-driven colour development (Lumachrome) and the use of layered glass plates.
No two prints are the same. Each one is adapted to the particular condition of the animal and the environment in which it was found. If the body is still bleeding, its blood may be incorporated into the image during exposure. Natural materials are always sourced from the site. Even maggots and flies, if present, leave traces that become part of the final work. Once the process is complete, the animals are buried with care and respect.
She is also the author of two acclaimed poetry collections: The Myrrh-Bearers (Puncher & Wattmann, 2015) and The Lumen Seed (Daylight Books, New York, 2017), the latter a collaborative project combining photographs and poetry developed in close consultation with Warlpiri people in the Tanami Desert.
Since 2011, she has spent part of each year living and working alongside Warlpiri communities in the Northern Tanami Desert. Her creative and collaborative practice is grounded in deep listening and long-term engagement, and she positions her work not as cultural representation, but as personal response. Warning to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people – this gallery may contain images of people who have passed away (Kumanjayi).
Themes of disconnection, identity loss, and reconnection to Country thread through her work—reflections shaped by her own mixed ancestry, which traces to the Bpangerang people of North-Eastern Victoria and the NSW Riverina, as well as to Ghana, Senegal, France, Ireland, Scotland, and the Ivory Coast. She does not claim cultural authority, does not speak on behalf of any Aboriginal group, and chooses not to access funding designated for Aboriginal people in acknowledgment of her relative privilege.
As well as her creative work, she has led and contributed to significant social justice projects. These include The Julfa Project, an initiative to digitally reconstruct and preserve photographic records of a destroyed Armenian cemetery, and Kurdiji 1.0, an Aboriginal-led suicide prevention app designed to strengthen cultural resilience in young Indigenous Australians by reconnecting them with community and tradition.
Additionally, she is a proud member of the Oculi collective and an Artist in Residence with Musica Viva, where she brings a unique sensibility to her work that blends visual and sonic traditions.
You can see more of her work on her website.
Or follow her on Instagram.
