Narelle Autio WATERHOLE

Artist Statement

Waterhole, a new exhibition by Narelle Autio, continues to display the artist’s vibrant and award-winning images of Australian coastal life that have won her impressive national and international acclaim.  Her latest body of work was completed while travelling through remote parts of Queensland, the Northern Territory, and Western Australia.  Driving through these dry and barren areas of Australia, she found herself unconsciously pulled towards the isolated bodies of water that somehow managed to survive. Like many others before her, the water seemed to dictate the way she should go; a constant reassurance in this beautiful, hot, and unforgiving place. A place that often seemed devoid of any living thing. She found that she had began to water-hop, planning her days so they would finish beside some out-of-the-way billabong or spring. The call was irresistible. Underwater, away from the heat, another world emerged among the dark shadows and shafts of light. While rejuvenated and with her thirst quenched, Autio also found a mystery lying beneath the still surface of these waters. A dark and ancient place of conflict, of light and dark and life and death, of questions unanswered.