Lilli Waters

Lilli Waters is a contemporary photographic artist living and working in Wurundjeri Country, Australia. Having studied photography in 2002, Waters has been exhibiting her works across Australia, Italy, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US since 2012. Waters’ photographs can be considered autobiographical landscapes, exploring feminist ideologies from her maternal lineage and the complex history behind her identity as a Thai-Australian woman. Not dissimilar to the still-life paintings of the Dutch masters, her work contains a myriad of symbols carefully constructed to articulate her humanity; self-portraits of Waters submerged in the river near her birthplace, traditional Thai fabrics floating in the water amongst waterlilies and nacre-covered shells, or pregnant bellies which embody strength and protection. Water is a recurring motif that carries through her images, acting as a thread that supports notions of rebirth and renewal. Her depiction of women in the landscape deconstructs historical perspectives, subverting the monolithic male gaze to re-contextualise what we have lost within the structures of the patriarchy.

Waters’ work has been exhibited internationally in Italy, Germany, Japan, the UK, the US, and Australia, earning widespread acclaim. Her images have appeared in numerous global publications, including Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire, Real Living, and Belle (Australia); Art Aesthetica (UK); Il Fotografo (Italy); FotoNostrum (Barcelona), Austrian Living (Austria); and The Opera and Pétala Magazine (Germany). Her work has also been featured in films such as Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed (USA).

Her works have been recognised with several prestigious awards, including being the winner of the Julia Margaret Cameron Award (2024), Du Rietz Art Award (2021), and the Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize Photography Award (2020, 2022). She has also been a finalist in prizes such as the Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize (2021, 2022), the Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Art (2021, 2022), the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award (2020), the Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize (2020, 2022), the Du Rietz Art Awards (2020), the Percival Photographic Art Prize (2020), the National Portrait Prize (2019), the Australian Photography Awards (2018–2023), and the Aesthetica Art Award (2018). In 2023, her moving image works were exhibited at Sydney Contemporary, Carriageworks, as part of her solo exhibition Pay Attention to the Heavens.