Tracey Moffatt AO (b. 1960) is an artist whose work reflects on issues including race, childhood trauma, gender and popular culture. Born in Brisbane, she graduated from the Queensland College of Art in 1982. After moving to Sydney, Moffatt was one of the co-founders of the Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative, and worked with Anthony (Ace) Bourke to curate NADOC '86 exhibition of Aboriginal and Islander photographers. In 1987 she made her first short film, Nice Coloured Girls. Moffatt became widely known through her celebrated first solo exhibition, Something More (1989). In 1990 her short film Night Cries – A Rural Tragedy (1989) was selected for official competition at the Cannes Film Festival, as was her first feature-length film, Bedevil, in 1993. Following the photographic series Scarred for Life (1994) she was invited to exhibit in the Venice Biennale in 1997, and during that year held solo exhibitions in Germany, Denmark, France and the USA. Since then, she has built an international reputation with a body of films and photographic series such as Laudanum (1998), Invocations (2000), Under the Sign of Scorpio (2005), First Jobs (2008) and Spirit Landscapes (2013). In 2007 she received the Infinity Award from New York's International Center of Photography; in 2012 she had a solo show at the city’s Museum of Modern Art. She became the first Aboriginal artist to present a solo exhibition, My Horizon, at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017. Moffatt's work is represented in all major Australian galleries.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011
© Elaine Pelot-Syron/Copyright Agency, 2024
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
In her self-portrait, Tracey Moffatt presents herself as her work.
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