The Unveiling by Elizabeth Opalenik

Elizabeth Opalenik is known for her sensual images, including the Mordançage process, hand printed black and white, infrared films, Polaroid manipulations, and specialised toning. Her latest exhibition, The Unveiling, features images created with the French alternative photographic process, Mordançage. Using this technique, the silver emulsion is chemically lifted in the shadow areas of high contrast gelatin prints. Opalenik delicately uses her breath and drops of water to rearrange the floating silver to the highlights of the image, creating unique pieces that express the feminine, sensual, and poetic nature of the artist's work.

© Elizabeth Opalenik
© Elizabeth Opalenik

Raised on a farm in Pennsylvania, living as a neighbour to the Amish and their uncomplicated ways, Opalenik’s upbringing continues to reverberate in the personal images she creates. Her ongoing projects are as diverse as her life experience, whether a figure study in water, a serene black and white photograph of Amish daily life, or an image from her most recent body of work, Poetry in Motion, which captures fluid, watercolour-like grace as the artist expresses her childhood dreams of becoming a dancer. She’s been a photographer for 28 years.

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November

Sydney: The exhibition delves into the State Library of NSW's vast collection of two million images, showcasing 400 photos – many displayed for the first time.

February

Ballarat: Scotty So is a Melbourne-based artist who works across media, using painting, photography, sculptures, site-responsive installation, videos and drag performance.

Melbourne: Jill Orr’s The Promised Land Refigured is an exhibition that reworks the original project created in 2012 with new insights that have emerged in the past eleven years.

Sydney: Curated by Lynn Smith, Urban Enigmas aims to unlock the subtle mysteries that lurk in out-of-the-way places in big cities: back lanes, river banks, street markets, abandoned factories, old bridges and so on.

March

Ballarat: Nan Goldin is an American artist whose work explores subcultures, moments of intimacy, the impacts of the HIV/AIDS and opioid epidemics on her communities, and photography as a tool for social activism.

Sydney: The Ocean Photographer of the Year Award, run by London based Oceanographic Magazine is in its 4th year and has quickly achieved recognition amongst photographers around the world.

Albury: The National Photography Prize offers a $30,000 acquisitive prize, the $5000 John and Margaret Baker Fellowship for an emerging practitioner, and further supports a number of artists through focused acquisitions.