PETA CLANCY awarded a New Work Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts

July 30, 2010

PETA CLANCY has been awarded a New Work Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts. She will create two series of photographic/wax works ‘Skin as Shifting Surface’ and ‘The Aurelian Project’.

For ‘Skin as Shifting Surface’ Clancy will continue exploring the paradoxical qualities of skin in photographic portraits by embedding the prints in wax to reflect translucent and opaque qualities of skin, both visually and metaphorically. For ‘The Aurelian Project’ (the title refers to the transformation of a chrysalis) she will explore the impact of human habitation on the lifecycle of butterflies in Australia by photographing specimens of the 26 species listed as threatened in the Action Plan for Australian Butterflies at Museum Victoria, Melbourne and Australian National Insect Collection, Canberra. These works will symbolise the fragile state of survival of each of the species and evoke a sense of renewal.