Melissa Madden Gray

Full description

Background:
Photographic portraits of artists are a dynamic field, with significant photographers Henri Cartier Bresson, Man Ray, Lee Miller and Annie Leibovitz dominating the field over the 20th and 21st centuries. The research investigated how artists are portrayed in their own home environment, away from the stage and performing. Drawing on Judith Butler’s notion of performativity alongside Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s writings on the phenomenological lived experience of the body, this artwork was created of Melissa Madden Gray within her own home, and through the signalling of self-identity and the body within the home space.

Contribution:
The artwork examined how personality, performance, costume and gesture can be portrayed through traditional in-situ environmental photographic portraiture. Rather than using a documentary or photo-journalist mode of enquiry, this research was a collaborative approach with the artist, as subject, performer and collaborator. The female gaze dominates the portrait, giving agency to both performer subject and photographer, which continues a contemporary interpretation of subversion of the male dominated gaze in photography in the portraiture landscape.

Significance:
The portrait of artist and performance Melissa Madden Gray was selected and exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, and is now on tour across Australia as part of the NPPP exhibition. The work has been included in a published book, and was also featured on Broadsheet media as one of the ‘top picks’ of the exhibition.