Burnt Memory

Description
Following a highly successful show in London last year, one of our best photographers, Lisa Tomasetti, will present in Australia her large-scale portraits in an exhibition entitled Burnt Memory at Gallery 101, Melbourne opening March 17. Shot in collaboration with Oscar-nominated cinematographer Seamus McGarvey (Atonement, The Hours, Nowhere Boy), Tomasetti's latest work is influenced by the Renaissance artists Caravaggio and Vermeer: dramatically lit with rich colours and a painterly quality. The subjects are all women or children and represent the continuation of Tomasetti's interest in exploring themes of childhood and how life experiences are 'written' on our skin. "This work is concerned with memory and innocence and how we can often recreate rather than recall our childhood," says Tomasetti. Tomasetti also references the Old Master paintings in her compositions, whilst replacing the traditional 'white middle-class sitter' of previous centuries with women and children from different cultures. She comments, "I wanted from my sitters a very still and haunting quality that would evoke issues of displacement and memory.