Georgia Metaxas’ photographic exhibition ‘The Mourners’ is now part of the National Gallery of Victoria’s Melbourne Now.
Metaxas’ approach, as she explained, in choosing appropriate subjects for each of these portraits came from a rigorous process, where she asked each potential sitter four specific questions, “For whom are you wearing black? Do you wear it everyday? How long have you been wearing it, and will you wear it for the rest of your life?”. If they answered the fourth question in the positive, then that would be the decisive point in asking the subject to pose for a portrait.
“I felt it was very necessary that whoever was chosen to be part of this project understood what I was doing, as well as to be part of this thread (of the four specific questions) to make a statement on other levels around the meaning of the colour black,” Metaxas tells Neos Kosmos.
Melbourne Now celebrates the latest art, architecture, design, performance and cultural practice to reflect the complex creative landscape of Melbourne. This ambitious and far-reaching exhibition across The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia and NGV International presents the various ways in which visual artists and creative practitioners profoundly contribute to the society in which we live, and to Melbourne as a city with a unique and dynamic cultural identity. Melbourne Now is a collaborative, cross-disciplinary project that has involved staff from all areas of the NGV, as well as a team of guest curators and artistic collaborators whose expertise and networks represent the excellence and diversity of Melbourne’s cultural community.
Born in 1974, Metaxas lives and works in Melbourne. Georgia Metaxas commenced photography in 1996, and produced her first series of portraits in 2004. These works comprised her first solo exhibition, ‘IKONA’, held at the Manningham Gallery in the Melbourne suburb of Doncaster later that same year. Since that time she has held several solo exhibitions, including ‘Lower Your Ears’, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne, 2007, and ‘The Mourners’, Fehily Contemporary, Melbourne, 2013. She has also been included in a number of group exhibitions, most recently ‘The Gravity of the Situation’, Faculty Gallery, Monash University, Melbourne, 2011, and ‘FutureGen’, John Curtin Gallery, Perth, 2012.
Melbourne Now is on at the National Gallery of Victoria until March 23, 2014. For more information visit www.ngv.vic.gov.au/melbournenow