Donna BAILEY<br/>
<em>Lush</em> (2002) <!-- (recto) --><br />

type C photograph<br />
50.3 x 65.0 cm irreg. (image) 61.7 x 76.2 cm irreg. (sheet)<br />
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne<br />
Purchased with funds arranged by Loti Smorgon for Contemporary Australian Photography, 2006<br />
2006.295<br />
© Donna Bailey
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Ruth O'LEARY
Flinders Street, 2017
(2017)

Medium
digital type C photograph

Measurements
110.4 × 77.8 cm (image) 112.0 × 82.3 cm (sheet)

Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, 2025

Gallery location
Gallery 14
Level 3, NGV Australia

About this work

Ruth O’Leary works across photography, video art, installation and performance. After the birth of her first child, O’Leary found it challenging to continue staging traditional photography shoots as she had done in the past. Determined to maintain her art practice, she began taking the train to Melbourne's Flinders Street Station with her baby, along with costumes and backdrops, and transformed the photobooth nearby into a makeshift studio. Captured in a single take, this photograph and other works from this series marked a turning point in O’Leary’s practice – where motherhood and artmaking were no longer in conflict, but rather, in dialogue.