22 September – 20 October 2017

Looking is the end intention of any photograph and looking is loaded with substantial political implications. Through examining the parallel development of photography and the commodification of the body, I have tried to isolate certain devices and abilities of photography that facilitate the imbalance of gendered looking. I have then sought to corrupt, confuse, rearrange and recombine these devices, producing a work that might implicate the viewer in the consequences of their own looking. The Origin of the World, is a series of 10 self-portraits that present my own naked body from the first person perspective, the point from which I can see myself. Using the 3D technologies of anaglyph prints and stereoscope viewers the work demands the act of looking become an action of looking. By forcing a physical actioning in order to look at the work the viewer becomes culpable in that deed. This creates a space from which the opportune spectator can decode the visual structures that have traditionally been used to objectify and idealise the female body, and opens the field of vision to an alternative and lived feminine experience.

Laura Moore is an emerging artist based in Sydney, currently undertaking her MFA at Sydney College of the Arts. Moore was the winner of the National Portrait Gallery's 2012 Digital Portraiture Award and her work has featured in a number of award exhibitions including The Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize, Sydney Life Exhibition and Prize, Art and About Sydney Festival, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award, The William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize and the 2016 Grace Cossington Smith Art Award. In 2013 Moore was a featured artist for the Perth Cultural Centre Screen and the Head On Photo Festival. In 2016 Moore was included in the exhibition and symposium The Alchemists: Rediscovering photography in the age of the jpeg at the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney; The Artist & Her Work at Stacks Project in Sydney; Code/switch at Woman Made Gallery in Chicago; and In The Field at Macquarie University Art Gallery. Further group exhibitions include SafARI 2014; Form and Substance, curated by Alex Seton, at Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane; and the 2014 PICA Salon. Solo exhibitions have been presented at Firstdraft Gallery, Art Est. Gallery, Verge Gallery and Galerie Pompom in Sydney; PhotoAccess in Canberra; and C3 Contemporary Art Space in Melbourne.

Images by Laura Moore.