Australian photographer

(b. 1973, Melbourne, Australia)

In 2005 the Print Council of Australia commissioned their annual selection of prints from a range of talented printmakers working within Australia. One of them was Sophia Szilagyi’s digital inkjet print, Where sha dows lie. Since its release it has been widely acclaimed and acquired by numerous public collections. The work features a detail of a face alongside an empty path winding through trees, and is beautifully evocative in its powerful use of light and haunting imagery. Szilagyi often uses details taken from well-known historical paintings, in her clever juxtapositions of past and present. Szilagyi works predominantly in digital printmaking, using it to create her often broody work. The idea of the woods, and the sense of mystery that it arouses is an archetypal feature running through many of her prints, as seen in both works illustrated. Incorporating photographic elements sometimes manipulated to the point of abstraction, Szilagyi plays with the idea of memory and dreams – and the varied responses this can arouse in the viewer.