Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize (MCPP) 2026

Photography Review by Brian Rope

Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize (MCPP) 2026 (Various artists)

Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre (MRAC) - 13 August to 10 October 2026

2026 sees the 8^th Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize (MCPP), although it had other names in its early years.

The winner of this year’s $30,000 prize is Troy Ruffels for a digital print on Composite Aluminium, titled Architectures of Connection, 2026. It will be acquired and join all previous MCPP winners in the Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre (MRAC) permanent collection of post-war contemporary paintings, ceramic and photography.

The artist statement explains the title, telling us that “what usually escapes perception appears as a fleeting architecture of connection.” It shows us fine strands revealing patterns of movement and explores how photography can reveal delicate yet resilient connections.

Troy Ruffels - Architectures of Connection, 2026, Digital Print on Composite Aluminium, 70 × 120 × 3 cm

The adjudicators also Highly Commended Jenny Pollak for ‘A line in the sand’ and Aidan Galeger for ‘Into the Sun’. Those works, and all the other selected finalists and their accompanying artist statements can be seen in a virtual gallery here.

As always when an exhibition’s artworks are by numerous entrants, I’ll now follow my practice of discussing just a selection of other exhibits I found most interesting.

Ann Vardanega’s artwork is part of a project about domestic and family violence. In this piece, the artist has successfully explored the concept of the environment as a place of regeneration. It is excellent to have an artist responding to an incredibly important issue.

Ann Vardanega - Spirit of the Land 2, 2025, digital inkjet print on cotton rag paper, framed

David Bignell’s ‘Reflecting’ looks at a person through an apparently moving train’s window. His concept is that by showing a blurred figure amidst reflections from inside and outside the window, he is showing us something of how our memories are often what determines how we see ourselves. I related strongly to this because reflections in and through windows are a significant part of my own photography - although I have never thought about my work in the way Bignell has done. 

David Bignell - Reflecting, 2026, Inkjet print on Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Gloss 

Another artwork addressing a most important issue is by Julie Millowick. Its title clearly identifies the issue – plastic in waterways being ingested by marine life, thus causing the marine consumer’s death. Noting that plastic pollution has become endemic, the artist photographs plastic bags so they seem to be in waterways and so the created visual beauty hides the toxic impact.

Julie Millowick, Plastic in waterways is consumed by marine life who perceive it as algae or jellyfish_3, 2025, Digital Image, Inkjet print on 100% Cotton Rag

Lilli Waters is a Thai-Australian. Here she has explored her Thai heritage and ancestral mythology. The underwater still-life intertwines plants, flowers, and fish. The resultant meditative scene reflects Waters’ pre-occupation with the natural world in the context of her cultural memory. Essentially an autobiographical landscape, this is a most attractive visual artwork. Printing it on fibre rag adds to its beauty.

Lilli Waters - Nāga’s Lanterns โคมไฟของนาค, 2025, archival pigment print on fibre rag

Peter Charuk’s video artwork engages with a landscape where cane is grown. He has recorded a rapidly changing landscape. The outcome is an excellent contribution to discussion about the significantly important issue of climate change. It challenges us to ask ourselves what the social implications of our human use of the landscape are.

Peter Charuk – Collateral Atmospherics 28 18’ 51’’ S 153 26’ 4’’ E, 2026, single-channel video, colour, sound (stereo)

Rebecca Polonski’s ‘Un-Becoming’ addresses yet another important social issue in today’s world. The artist has done this by using negative images and excluding elements that she did not wish to show. Lichen on one side of the artwork draws our attention away from the face on the opposite side. This portrays the feelings of today’s youth that are overlooked or pushed to the fringes of our crowded world. The artist statement says that over time the cloth on which the piece is printed will weather and the youngster will gradually disappear. Of course, or young selves all do that as we age.

Rebecca Polonski – Un-Becoming, 2026, Pigmented ink on linen

The final exhibit I will mention is by Sandra Barnard. Her artist statement reveals it is a camera-less photograph made by exposing photographic paper inside an enlarger’s bellows. She has put various objects into that space and exposed them directly. In the resultant “reversed” image, the subject has become the film and the print is, in effect, the negative. The artwork references William Henry Fox Talbot's 1844 negative-positive photographic process and, specifically, that artist’s work 'Articles of Glass'

Sandra Barnard - That Might Look Good in My Enlarger II – Cruets CMYKRGB, 2025, Hand printed Chromogenic Photograph

Go see this exhibition if you can. And study the works and artist statements closely online.

This review is also available on the author's blog.

 

 

 

EVIDENCE AND THE VISIBLE

Photography | Brian Rope

EVIDENCE AND THE VISIBLE | CATHERINE ROGERS

Drill Hall Gallery | 24 June – 14 August 2022

Evidence and The Visible is a large exhibition, deserving multiple visits. Extraordinary is not too strong a word for this retrospective of works by Catherine Rogers. Not only are there many images, using every available space in the gallery, but there also are five short essays about them. I recommend collecting a copy at the entrance and reading each essay before viewing the relevant works.

Rogers’ photographic practice began in the 1970s and her copious, yet relatively little-known, body of work is surveyed here for the first time. None of the visitors I spoke with at the opening had been aware of Rogers previously.

We see a set of images from 2018 investigating diverse techniques established by pioneering photographers in the 19th century, resulting in an array of extremely plausible fakes. An essay about these works invites us to enter the game. Most students and practitioners of photography know of the pioneer Fox Talbot and his Latticed Window, generally regarded as the first negative photograph. It is delightful to see this set alluding to that beginning.

There is a group of A1-sized prints titled Between Heaven and Earth, Lost in Space. These too reference Talbot, who was a skilled user of telescopes. There is a set labelled Found Negatives, another Found Glass Plate Negatives. Each set is different, each interesting and worthy of close examination.

Catherine Rogers, Blue moon as an orange from the series Lost in Space 1990-2020

Catherine Rogers, Shadows in deep space from the series Lost in Space 1990-2020

Much of Rogers’ photography relates to landscape, using conventional and unconventional methods of recording and evoking the physical terrain. There are seascapes glorying in the splendour of the silver halide medium, accentuating the dividing horizon line between ocean and sky. Another visitor expressed to me his view that works showing an area of sky immediately above an area of sea, with nothing more than the cloven horizon between was not novel. Whilst others have also created such works, those displayed here are fine examples.

Catherine Rogers - Southern Ocean

Perhaps the most intriguing works and, certainly, drawing numerous visitors in for a close look are those labelled Nature of Evidence. Dating from 1986, these are about the Azaria Chamberlain case. Rogers notes that photography played a very important part in the case, particularly the trial of Lindy Chamberlain, from the outset. All kinds of photographic material were used as evidence. At the 1987 Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Chamberlain Convictions, Rogers observed how sharp, detailed and colour accurate photographs used as evidence had to be explained and given words by forensic experts. She asked herself why and that led to development of this body of work.

Catherine Rogers, The Nature of Evidence (Looking and not looking for her), 1986

There is a group of visually stunning and large colour prints of ancient forests in the Upper Florentine area of Tasmania. These works date from 2007, when trees in the area were marked to be cut down so a logging road could be made. From 2003 Rogers recorded aspects of this valley and the Styx before they were destroyed. An essay about these works is a sad reminder, if needed, of the destruction.

Catherine Rogers, Red Road Upper Florentine #4, Tasmania, logging coup F044A, 2007

And I was most delighted to see the set of images labelled Waiting Rooms. I enjoyed considering which of these most Contemporary works would suit what types of waiting rooms.

 

Catherine Rogers, from Pictures for Waiting Rooms 2015-2022

Catherine Rogers, from Pictures for Waiting Rooms 2015-2022

My word limit does not allow me to address everything in the exhibition, but I must mention the fact this artist has embraced tintype, film negatives and positives, colour and black and white, digital, cameras with lenses and some without (pinholes). She has also made images without using a camera. Rogers describes her image archives as extensive, and notes that her images have been made over a period of forty years. Long may she continue creating new work.

This review was first published on page 23 of The Canberra Times of 11/7/22 and online here. It is also available on the author's blog here.