Gerwyn Davies

Sunshine Coast National Art Prize 2025 - Finalist

_{Image courtesy of artist, Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane and Michael Reid Galleries, Sydney/Berlin}

Artist Statement

Where the camera is conventionally claimed to possess a unique capacity for revealing something of a subject to its viewer, in my own practice, I instead perform acts of queer photographic dis/appearance. 

My figure is buried beneath elaborate, sculptural costumes that mutually entice yet resist the viewer’s examination while the image itself is polished and manicured, obtaining a slick and synthetic glow. 

This double bind of a figure both conspicuously stood before the lens while nowhere to be seen — hiding in plain sight — reflects my ongoing interest in the potentials of queer representational in/visibility through which subjects are empowered to pass before the camera un/seen. 

In this work Bait, I use costume and camera to conjure a world of Australian tropical kitsch – one not too far removed from the parochial torpor of Porpoise Spit, albeit queered and reimagined with warm nostalgia and knowing camp.