Rogue Wave

In this year’s Peter Turner Memorial Lecture leading Aotearoa New Zealand photographic artist Yvonne Todd will discuss the role her insistent imagination plays in creating photographs, along with other insights into her distinctive practice. An exhibiting artist for the past twenty-four years, Todd will discuss the importance of imagination and her fascination with portraiture, as well as the sometimes-uncomfortable elements of the psychological in her work. She will also discuss the rigours, both conceptual and practical, of producing and exhibiting photographs.

BIOGRAPHY

Yvonne Todd (b. 1973, Tāmaki Makaurau) uses large format film cameras to create photographs that combine aspiration and perversity. These constantly push the viewer to question the hidden narratives simmering just beneath the surface.

“Photography has always appealed to me because it allows for such interesting convergences of the artificial and real. Familiar photographic tropes are embedded in my work, but nothing is definitive.”

Exhibiting since 1997, Todd has work in the collections of all major Australasian public art galleries and has been included in numerous major public-gallery exhibitions. The breadth of her work was showcased in a major survey exhibition, Creamy Psychology, at City Gallery Wellington in 2015. It was the first time City Gallery gave the entire gallery space to one artist.

Recent and current exhibitions include Garden Variety: Photography, Politics and the Picturesque, a commission by the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne as part of the PHOTO 2021 International Festival of Photography, Act Natural at McLeavey Gallery Wellington and Choose Happiness at MAMA Albury, NSW.

In 2002, Todd won the inaugural Walters Prize, New Zealand’s most prestigious art award. In 2019, she received an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Te Tumi Toi Laureate Award.

Yvonne Todd has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Auckland and lives and works in Tāmaki Makaurau.