About the Artist
Rowan Conroy is an independent visual artist. He was senior lecturer in Photography and Media Arts, School of Art & Design, Australian National University 2014-2021. Since 2005, Conroy's work has focused on the use of photographic technologies to address the beauty and discord, detailed richness and absence within landscape, in Australia, the Middle East, Greece and China. Conroy is concerned in the way the past can echo into the present through visual traces and artefacts. These sit within the environment as testament to past human desires and motivations. The camera has a disinterested eye and renders these details, whether beautiful or unsightly, within the same frame.
In 2012, Conroy was awarded a PhD from The University of Sydney for his thesis Archaeologies of the Present: Rephotographing the William John Woodhouse Photographic Archive, a rephotography project undertaken in Greece revisiting well known and obscure archaeological sites and urban environments. In 2013, the Australian Centre for Photography exhibited a major retrospective of Conroy's PhD research The Woodhouse Rephotography Project. Conroy has been the recipient of numerous competitive grants and his artworks are regularly shortlisted in nationally significant art prizes. He has exhibited extensively and his works are held in public and private collections in Australia and internationally. Most recently, he has been undertaking the project Weereewa / Bad water focusing on the mysterious and haunted landscape of Lake George in NSW. Using still photography and drone footage, Conroy shows the lakebed as an expansive palimpsest, with many overlayed histories and mythologies written across its surface.
Portrait of the artist, by Craig Tuffin 2015. Tintype.
Solo Exhibitions
2019 Sight Seeing, The Photographic Society of Singapore Gallery
Sight Seeing, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery and Museum, Goulburn, New South Wales
2016 Weereewa / Bad Water, Pingyao International Photography Festival, China
2015 From Australia, Pingyao International Photography Festival, China
2014 Natura Naturans, Barometer Gallery, Sydney
2013 The Woodhouse Rephotography Project, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney
2012 ATHINA, Chapter House Lane, Melbourne
2011 William J. Woodhouse Rephotography Project, Barometer Gallery, Sydney
2008 Puratha: the sad place revisited, Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery, New South Wales
2007 Puratha: the sad place, Sydney College of the Arts Gallery
2006 Material Culture, Peloton, Sydney
Lebanon: from Baalbek to Beirut Nicholson Museum, Sydney
2005 Melancholy Objects, Newspace Gallery, Sydney
2004 Oil and Plastic, with Lachlan Calvey, Newspace Gallery, Sydney
Selected and Curated Group Exhibitions
2018 William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize, Monash Gallery of Art (curated by peer review)
Impact 10, International Printmaking Conference, Spain (curated by peer review)
Homage to Seferis, Nicosia Gymnasia and Museum, Cyprus (curated)
1x1, ANU School of Art & Design Gallery
2017 Travellers from Australia, European Capital of Culture, Paphos 2017, Cyprus (curated)
Lime Light, w/ Martyn Jolly, Performance of contemporary lantern slides, Drill Hall Gallery, ANU
Fencelines #1, projection and music performance at Lucence, ANU School of Art & Design Gallery
Making Design Research, ANU School of Art & Design Gallery (curated)
2016 Land Dialogues, HR Gallop Gallery, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga (curated by peer review)
The One Project, PhotoAccess, Manuka
2015 Ink Limits: Recent Artists Photobooks, Impact 9 Printmaking Conference, Hangzhou, China
(curated by peer review)
Light Years, PhotoAccess Manuka (curated)
2014 Green, Barometer Gallery, Sydney
The Bowness Photography Prize, Monash Gallery of Art
38th Alice Springs Arts Prize, Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs
2013 C O R, Barometer Gallery, Sydney
1+1, Marrickville Garage, Sydney
2012 William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize, Monash Gallery of Art
Fauvette Loureiro Memorial Artists Travel Scholarship, Sydney College of the Art
Josephine Ulrick Win Schubert Photography Award, Gold Coast City Gallery
Back to the Garden, Barometer Gallery, Head On Photo Festival, Sydney
2011 Exposed: Photography and the Classical Nude, The Nicholson Museum, Sydney
‘a shadow of its former self’ At the Vanishing Point (ATVP), Head On Photo Festival, Sydney
2010 The Wall, THEARTSPACE and The Goethe Institute, Nicosia, Cyprus
2008 Book for a lifetime, THEARTSPACE and The Goethe Institute, Nicosia, Cyprus
The Fragile Absolute, Delmar Gallery Trinity Grammar, Sydney
Grants, Scholarships & Art Prizes
2018 ANU Major Equipment Committee Grant, Digital Imaging Research Facility
2017 Create NSW Regional Artist Fellowship, Creative Residencies in Archaeology 2018-2020
2016 ANU Research School of Humanity and the Arts (RSHA) Summer Research Grant, Creative Drone Research
2016 ANU RSHA Conference funding, Pingyao International Photography Festival, China
2015 ANU RSHA Conference funding, Impact 9 Conference, China
2014 Finalist William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize, Monash Gallery of Art
Finalist 38th Alice Springs Arts Prize, Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs
2012 Australia Council for the Arts Artstart grant
2010 University of Sydney Grants in Aid, W.J. Woodhouse Rephotography Project
2007-10 University Postgraduate Award (UPA)
2006 Australia Council for the Arts New Work Grant for Emerging Artists
Collections
Goulburn Regional Art Gallery Permanent Collection
Australia Council for the Arts Permanent Collection
University of Wollongong Permanent Collection
Delmar Gallery Trinity Grammar School
Brain and Mind Research Institute, Sydney
William Wilkins Memorial Art Collection
Paphos Municipality Council, Cyprus
And numerous private collections