Some lads can be considered the body of work by which Tracey Moffatt announced herself as one of Australia's most inventive and compelling visual storytellers. The photographs articulate what would become the distinctive characteristics of Moffatt's prolific practice: the coexistence of beauty, levity and wit with the incisive examination of race and its representation, deftly navigated through the overt use of artifice and performance. Unlike the staged ethnographic photographs taken of First Nations people by colonial photographers in the 19th century, the history of which Moffatt has routinely referenced in her work, the men in Some lads are not passive or artificially posed. Rather they proudly and playfully engage with the camera. These are scenes of eruptive energy, where joy assumes a subversive power. This photograph features Graham Blanco.
Purchased with funds provided by the Annual Appeal 2024
© Tracey Moffatt
Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney.
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