A national touring show that traces the development of contemporary photographic practice over the past 50 years, Piccinini is represented in the exhibition by her photographic work Desert Rider, Mountain.

Born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, in 1965, Piccinini arrived in Australia in 1972. She studied at the Australian National University, completed a Bachelor of Arts (Painting) at the Victoria College of Arts in Melbourne, and represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 2003. 

Exploring concepts of what is “natural” in the digital age, Piccinini brings a deeply personal perspective to her work.

As MCA curator Rachel Kent notes: “Since the early 1990s, Piccinini has pursued an interest in the human form and its potential for manipulation and enhancement through bio-technical intervention.  From the mapping of the human genome to the growth of human tissue and organs from stem cells, Piccinini’s art charts a terrain in which scientific progress and ethical questions are intertwined.”

Regular visitors to Bendigo Art Gallery will no doubt be familiar with the work by Piccinini in the gallery’s own collection, The Young Family. 

A sculptural piece, it’s representative of the artist’s fascination with science, medicine and abnormality, and was one of the works on display at the Venice Biennale. 

In The Young Family we see a sow-like mother with a litter of pups, the archetypal maternal scene. Her skin and eyes are human in appearance but she has the hairy back and hands of a primate, a snout, long floppy ears and a tail stub of porcine appearance. She has a humane demeanor and maternal generosity – Piccinini called her “beautiful” and says, “she is not threatening, but a face you could love, and a face in love with her family.”

The current exhibition is organised and toured by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. It presents contemporary photographic practice from the Power and MCA Collections and features more than 70 photographic works from Australian and international artists from the 1960s to today across a range of media including black and white photography, artist books, photo-lithography and digital photography. 

The artists represented have been recognised as contributing significantly to critical debates and photographic theory and technique. 

The range of works presented allow for rich connections to be made between different photographic practices, including documentary photography, serial photography, performance photography and manipulation of the photographic image. 

Patricia Piccinini will speak at the gallery at 5.30pm on Tuesday, March 17. Numbers are limited for this event, so bookings are essential. Please contact the gallery on 5434 6088.

The exhibition Remain in Light: Photography from the MCA Collections continues until April 17. 

It is open Tuesday to Sunday and on public holidays. Entry is by donation.