© National Portrait Gallery 2025
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196
National Photographic Portrait Prize 2017 Finalist
Carol Mayer was a young mother when she suffered extensive burns in a house fire – her family was told she would not survive. After a year of operations and skin grafts she lived to prove the predictions wrong, and now spends much of her time advocating for and counselling other burns victims. In 2016 she has spent weeks of her time supporting the survivors of the horrific 2015 ‘Serves You Right Café’ explosion in Ravenshoe, North Queensland that killed two people and injured twenty more. She allowed me to make her portrait and is proud of ‘the skin I’m in’.
The exhibition is selected from a national field of entries, reflecting the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects.
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