Lilli Waters
Artist's Statement
Lilli Waters’ photographs can be understood as autobiographical landscapes that explore feminist ideologies inherited through her maternal lineage alongside the complexities of her identity as a Thai-Australian woman. Drawing from the visual language of Dutch still-life painting, her works are composed as carefully constructed symbolic environments: submerged self-portraits in the river near where she was born, fabrics drifting amongst water lilies and nacre-covered shells, and maternal forms that evoke strength, protection and renewal. Water recurs throughout her practice as both subject and metaphor, operating as a conduit for memory, rebirth and transformation. Through her depictions of women within the landscape, Waters interrogates historical modes of representation, subverting the monolithic male gaze to recontextualise what has been obscured within patriarchal structures.
Biography
Lilli Waters (b. 1983) lives and works in Melbourne/Naarm, Australia (Wurundjeri Country). A Thai-Australian contemporary photographic artist, Waters has exhibited internationally since 2012 across Australia, Europe, the United Kingdom, Japan and the United States. Her work has been presented through institutions and festivals including FotoNostrum (Barcelona), the California Museum of Photography, the International Center of Photography (New York), Palmengarten (Frankfurt), the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Ballarat International Foto Biennale and Head On Photo Festival.
Waters is the recipient of the 2024 Julia Margaret Cameron Award and was awarded second prize in the 2022 Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize Photography Award. She has been a finalist in numerous Australian art prizes, including the National Photographic Portrait Prize, Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize, Fisher’s Ghost Art Award and the Percival Photographic Portrait Prize. In 2021, she was named among Lürzer’s Archive’s 200 Best Photographers Worldwide. Her work has been published internationally in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle and Marie Claire, and has appeared in the films Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed.
