Snap Freeze: Still Life Now

It is widely claimed among Western historians and art critics that the still life genre exists in the lower levels of the artistic ‘hierarchy’. Through excluding the human presence and focusing on the details of the everyday and the informal, still life creates a rich and important resource for looking into life and culture. Reaching its peak in popularity in the 17th century Netherlands, as a genre, it has endured and continually been re-invented by the artists of the day.

Snap Freeze: Still Life Now presents a frozen moment in Australian still life practice, featuring works created by Australian artists from 2000 to the present. Drawing on examples of paintings, 3-dimensional and photographic works, this exhibition looks at the practice of 21st century Australian artists and how their work alternately embrace, build upon or re-invent the conventions of still life, inviting viewers to reconsider the multifaceted qualities which the genre encompasses at the present time.