"Fresh connects table arrangements with narratives of play and landscape. In response to traditions in still life painting and to my own previous photographic work Australiana/still life (2003-2012) that included the deaths of wild animals, I aimed in this work to raise the image of temporality and lightness and to bring a certain joie de vivre to the site of the table. The regenerative image of play provides an instructive alternative to Judeo-Christian guilt. I believe that somehow through our own imagination and engagement, we have to find sustaining metaphors for living that reflect the understanding of our own folly. Not for a moment do I think that play is foolish. Quite the contrary, I believe that play is a seriously creative tool for finding relevant meaning through better understanding." Marian Drew 2014

Where traditional still life tableaux engage the viewer in allegories of wealth, power and mortality these works explore playful exuberance and suggest ways for living.

Marian Drew, born in 1960, Bundaberg, is one of Australia's most significant contemporary photographic artists. Drew's practice, spanning more than twenty years, is characterised by innovation and exploration of photo-media. Drew has held over 20 solo shows across Australia, United States, France and Germany and is currently represented by galleries in United States and Australia. Her work is held is many major public and private collections across Australia including Australian National Gallery, Queensland Art Gallery, South Australian Art Gallery and in the J. Paul Getty Museum in the USA.

Drew has won numerous awards and her publication; Marian Drew - Photographs + Video works; a survey of her practice from 1983 to 2006, contains texts by Dr. Caroline Jordan, Anne Kirker, Dr. Brigitta Olubas, Russel Storer and a foreword by internationally renowned art theoretician Geoffrey Batchen. Drew was chosen to represent Australia in the First Asia Pacific Triennial at the Queensland Art Gallery. Recently one of her works was purchased by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where it featured in the exhibition "In Focus: Still Life" in September 2010. Presently, Drew is an Associate Professor at Queensland College of Art, Griffith University.

-Amelia Johnson Contemporary

Image: © Marian Drew
Courtesy of the artist and Amelia Johnson Contemporary