Petrina Hicks – Snakes and Mirrors

Petrina Hicks works with photography to create large-scale photographs that draw from mythology, fables, and historical art imagery to reframe the contemporary female experience.

Permeated with a sense of magical realism, animals and females often appear together to represent aspects of psyche and identity, alluding to the complexity of female identity and the sentience of animals. The porous boundaries between human and animal states and the affinity of females and animals are central to her work.

In Snakes and mirrors the artist contemplates the self-awareness of animals, and our desire to understand the phenomenology of animal life from a human perspective.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.

Curator: MAPh Director Anouska Phizacklea

Image: Petrina HICKS, Memento mori II (2024), courtesy of the artist, Michael Reid (Sydney)