By Amy Bortolazzo
Tracey Moffatt is a famous Australian artist. She was born in 1960, around the time of The Vietnam War. Tracey Moffatt has an Aboriginal background and grew up in Brisbane, Queensland.
Tracey Moffatt’s childhood was an important time in her life. It helped her become the artist she is today. Tracey took the following photograph, Rock Star, 1974 as an adult, copying a photograph that she had taken when she was a child with her very first camera.
Rock Star 1974 © Tracey Moffatt, 1998. Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney.
Many books and pictures from films and television inspire Moffatt’s art practice. When she was a child, she loved picture books. She remembers reading many short stories “filled with pictures of people acting.”
Moffatt uses an old-fashioned method to create her photographs and films. She doesn’t use a small digital camera that most people have at home or can purchase at the shops – Did you know that digital photography did not always exist!
Instead, she uses cameras that require film – a brown plastic strip that is loaded into the back of a camera on a roll. When using a camera, the object being photographed marks the film, creating a photographic negative. The negative is developed in special chemicals that produce a print of the photograph. Photographers don’t know what the photograph will look like until this process is complete!
Untitled Negative © Tracy Moffatt, 2010. Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney.
Untitled © Amy Bortolazzo, 2010
Think about something that you love. It could be a favourite book, movie, person or animal… anything! It is your turn to be the artist and create your own version of something you love – it does not have to be an exact copy of what you see!
Choose your artistic medium – the materials and equipment that will help you create your masterpiece!
You can choose from: Paint, a camera, found objects, clay or fabric.
Think about the things that inspired Tracey Moffatt’s art making and the methods she used to create her artworks.
Here is a picture of Tracey Moffatt’s artwork, from her ‘First Jobs’ series, to give you a little inspiration.
First Jobs, Selling Aluminium Siding 1978 © Tracey Moffatt, 2008. Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney.
Be as creative as you like – art has no limits!
All images courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney