Born Melbourne
Lives and works Melbourne, Australia
www.polixenipapapetrou.net
STUDIES
2009 Adjunct Research Fellow, Monash University
2007 PhD, Monash University, Melbourne
1997 Master of Arts (Media Arts), RMIT University, Melbourne
1984 Bachelor of Arts, University of Melbourne
1984 Bachelor of Laws, University of Melbourne
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2011 Tales from Elsewhere, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney
2010 Between Worlds, The Athens Festival of Photography, Athens
Tales from Elsewhere, Month of Photography, Galéria 19, Bratislava
Between Worlds, ARTITLED!, Herpen, The Netherlands
Between Worlds, L MD Gallerie, Paris
Between Worlds, Stills Gallery, Sydney
Between Worlds, Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria
Between Worlds, Gallery 25 at Stefano’s, Mildura, Victoria
2009 Between Worlds, Nellie Castan Gallery, Melbourne
2008 Games of Consequence, Foley Gallery, New York
Games of Consequence, Nellie Castan Gallery, Melbourne
Games of Consequence, Stills Gallery, Sydney
Wonderland, Warrnambool Art Gallery, Warrnambool
Games of Consequence, Fotofreo, Fremantle Festival of Photography,
Perth
2007 Haunted Country, Roger Williams Contemporary, Auckland
Haunted Country, Nellie Castan Gallery, Melbourne
2006 Haunted Country, Foley Gallery, New York
Haunted Country, Johnston Gallery, Perth
Selected works from Dreamchild and Phantomwise, Stills Gallery,
Sydney
Elvis Immortal, Nellie Castan Gallery, Melbourne
Haunted Country, Stills Gallery, Sydney
A Most Curious Adventure, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne
Wonderland, Horsham Regional Art Gallery, Victoria
2005 After Alice, (concurrent with Angela Grossman) de la culture Plateau-
Mont-Royal, ‘Le Mois de la Photo’, 9th Montreal Photography Biennale,
Montréal
Go Ask Alice, Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, New South Wales
Dreamchild, Johnston Gallery, Perth
2004 Mystical Places, Stills Gallery, Sydney
Wonderland, Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Melbourne
Phantomwise, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne
Dreams and Whispers, Nexus Gallery, Adelaide
2003 Dreamchild, Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria
Dreamchild, photographic, New York, USA
Saturday’s Child, Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Melbourne
Phantomwise, Stills Gallery, Sydney
2002 Searching for Marilyn, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne
Olympia Masked, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Victoria
2001 Authority (Part II), Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney
2000 Authority, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne
1999 Olympia’s Clothes, Stripp Gallery, Melbourne
1998 Elvis Immortal, Old Treasury, Melbourne
1997 Elvis Immortal, Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria
Fallible Archetypes, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney
1996 Curated Bodies, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne
1991 Elvis Lives (in Melbourne), State Library of Victoria, Melbourne
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2011 Hijacked 2: Australia and Germany, Queensland College of Art Gallery,
Griffith University, Brisbane; The Anne and Gordon Samstag Museum,
Adelaide; John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University, Perth
2010 La forêt de mon rêve (The Forest of My Dream), Galerie du Conseil
Général of Aix-en-Provence, France (2010-2011)
Imagining the Everyday, curated by Alasdair Foster, Pingyao
International Photography Festival, Pingyao, China
Inside Out, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco
1st Biennial International Photography Invitational, Skotia Gallery,
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Art Miami, Florida, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco
Art Amsterdam Art Fair RAI 2010, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
(ARTITLED!)
Hijacked 2: Australia and Germany, Australian Centre for
Photography, Sydney; Australian National University Gallery,
Canberra; Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne
Season 10, Stills Gallery, Sydney
Duetto, Experimental Arts Foundation, Adelaide
2009 Alice’s Mirror, curated by Youngsil Sohn, Gallery SUN Contemporary,
Seoul
Big Picture, Murdoch University Art Gallery, Perth
Nothing out of the Ordinary, Nellie Castan Gallery, Melbourne
The History of the National Photography Prize, Albury Regional Art
Gallery, New South Wales
Josephine Ulrick Winn Schubert Photographic Art Award, Gold Coast
City Art Gallery, Queensland
2008 Artist File 2008: The NACT Annual Show of Contemporary Art, curated
by Yusuke Minami National Arts Center, Tokyo
Humanscape, curated by Youngsil Sohn, Seoul International
Photography Festival, Seoul
Presumed Innocence: Photographic Perspectives of Children, De
Cordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, Massachusetts
Silver-Lined: Contemporary artists and the Performing Arts Collection,
Arts Centre, Melbourne
FX in Contemporary Photography, McClelland Gallery and Sculpture
Park, Melbourne
Aphrodite's dress: artists in collaboration, Bundanon Trust, NSW
2007 Tell Me a Story: Narrative Photography Now, curated by Merry
Foresta, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego
Aperture 55th anniversary exhibition, Aperture Gallery, Aperture
Foundation, New York
Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?: Mythology, Fairytales and the
Occult, curated by Emma Bugden and Pita Turei, Te Tuhi Gallery,
Manukau City, New Zealand
Living Elvis, RMIT Gallery, RMIT University, Melbourne
Contemporary Group Show, Roger Williams Contemporary, Auckland,
(Auckland Festival of Photography)
Beauty, What For?, curated by Éditions Babylone, Paris, at El Zanjon,
Buenos Aires
Constructed Realms: Photography as Theatre, Albury Regional Art
Gallery, New South Wales
2006 Decade: Acquisitions 1996 – 2006, Bendigo Art Gallery,
Picturing the Sea, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, The University of
Western Australia, Perth
Changeling, curated by Alasdair Foster, Carnegie Gallery, Hobart;
Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria; Noosa Regional Gallery,
Queensland; Mornington Regional Art Gallery, Melbourne
2005 Beyond Real: Dressing Up, curated by Alasdair Foster, Australian
Centre for Photography, Sydney
The Plot Thickens: Narratives in Australian Art, Ballarat Fine Art
Gallery, Victoria
Recent Acquisitions: Photographs from the MGA Collection, Monash
Gallery of Art, Melbourne
2004 Changeling, curated by Alasdair Foster, Australian Centre for
Photography, Sydney
The Line Between Us: The Maternal Relation in Contemporary
Photography, curated by Kyla McFarlane, Monash University Museum
of Art, Melbourne
The Melbourne Art Fair, Stills Gallery
The Plot Thickens: Narratives in Australian Art, curated by Kendrah
Morgan, Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Melbourne
Photographica Australis, Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, 11th Asian
Art Biennale, Bangladesh
The Citigroup Private Bank Australian Photographic Portrait Prize, Art
Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Larger than Life, Albury Regional Art Gallery, New South Wales
2003 Fair Game, curated by Anonda Bell, Ian Potter Centre, National Gallery
of Victoria, Melbourne
MAKE Believe-Photographic Fictions, Sir Hermann Black Gallery,
University of Sydney, NSW and Stills gallery, Sydney
Corpus of Meaning: Figures Through the Lens of Female
Photographers, Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida
Photographica Australis, National Gallery of Thailand, Bangkok,
Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
Construct, 24 HR Art, NT Centre for Contemporary Art, Darwin,
Northern Territory
Play, Academy Gallery, University of Tasmania, Launceston;
Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria
Albury Photographic Purchase Award, Albury Regional Art Gallery, New
South Wales
The Citigroup Private Bank Australian Photographic Portrait Prize, Art
Gallery of New South Wales
2002 Photographica Australis, curated by Alasdair Foster, Sala De
Exposiciones Del Canal De Isabel II, (ARCO) Madrid
Play, Plimsoll Gallery, University of Tasmania, Hobart
When I was young: Impressions of Childhood, Global Arts Link,
Ipswich, Queensland
Photography from Australia and New Zealand, Sotheby’s, New York;
The Australian Consulate, New York
2001 Telling Tales: The Child in Contemporary Photography, Perth Institute
of Contemporary Arts, Perth; University of South Australia Museum of
Art, Adelaide; Campbelltown City Bicentennial Art Gallery, Sydney
What John Berger Saw, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane
Striking, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne
2000 Telling Tales: The Child in Contemporary Photography, Monash
University Gallery, Melbourne; Bendigo Art Gallery, Bendigo; Institute
of Modern Art, Brisbane
What John Berger Saw, Orange Regional Gallery, New South Wales;
Monash University Gallery, Melbourne; University of South Australia
Museum of Art; Adelaide, John Curtin Gallery, Perth
Striking, Campbelltown City Bicentennial Art Gallery, Campbelltown;
Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria; Mildura Arts Centre, Victoria; Geelong
Art Gallery, Geelong
1999 What John Berger Saw, curated by Merryn Gates, Canberra School of
Art Gallery, Canberra
1997 WorkStation, Platform, Melbourne
1995 The First Age, West Space, Melbourne
1993 Immortality, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne
For My Part, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne
Images of Their Land By Five Australian Photographers, University of
Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
COLLECTIONS
Albury Regional Art Gallery, New South Wales
Anthony and Beth Terrana Collection, Massachusetts
Artbank, Sydney
Art Gallery of Ballarat, Victoria
Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria
Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria
BHP Billiton, Melbourne
Bundanon Trust, New South Wales
Edith Cowan University, Perth
Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria
Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria
Gold Coast City Art Gallery, Queensland
Horsham Regional Art Gallery, Victoria
Joe Baio Collection, New York
LaTrobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria
Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne
Murdoch University, Perth
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida, USA
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
National Library of Australia, Canberra
Pat Corrigan Collection, Sydney
Peter Mac Center, Melbourne
The Arts Centre, Melbourne
Warrnambool Art Gallery, Victoria
Wesfarmers Art Collection, Perth
Private Collections in Australia, England, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium,
USA
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books
Naomi Rosenblum, A History of Women Photographers, Abbeville Press, New
York, 2010
Anne Marsh, Look: Contemporary Australian Photography, Palgrave MacMillan
Australia, 2010
Mark McPherson, ed. Hijacked 2, Big City Press, Perth, 2010
Glenis Israel, Artwise Contemporary 2, Jacaranda, John Wiley & Sons Australia,
Ltd, Milton, Qld, 2009, pp. 43-50
Rachel Power, The Divided Heart: black dog books, Melbourne, 2008, pp. 167-
176
Anne Higonnet, Rachel Lafo, Kate Dempsey (ed.), Presumed Innocence:
Photographic Perspectives of Children, De Cordova Museum, Massachusetts, 2008
Sonia Payes, Untitled: Portraits of Australian Artists, MacMillan Publishers,
Australia, 2007, pp. 260-265
Adrian Martin, ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’, Untitled: Portraits of Australian Artists,
MacMillan Publishers, Australia, 2007, pp. 260-265
Susan McCulloch, The New McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art, The
Meigunyah Press and Aus Art Editions, 2006, pp. 754-5, p.776
Nikos Papastergiadis, Spatial Aesthetics: Art Place and the Everyday, Rivers Oram
Press, London. 2006, p. 104-107
Martha Langford, ‘Mirroring Ourselves, Recasting Otherness, After Alice: Angela
Grossman and Polixeni Papapetrou’, Image and Imagination, ed. Martha
Langford, McGill-Queens University Press, Montreal & Kingston, 2005, p. 2, 75-80
Anne Marsh, ‘The Child and the Archive’, The Darkroom: Photography and the
Theatre of Desire, Macmillan, Melbourne, 2003, pp. 249-259 and illus. figs.65-68)
Barry Divola, ‘The Day the Music Died’, Fan Club, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1998
pp. 216- 222
Catalogue essays
Alasdair Foster, Tales from Elsewhere, Month of Photography, Bratislava, 2010,
pp. 38-39
Between Worlds, Athens Festival of Photography, Hellenic Centre for
Photography, Athens, 2010, pp. 22-23
Vincent Tuset-Anres and Nathalie Guimard, La Foret de mon rêve, Galerie d’Art
du Conseil general des Bouches-du-Rhone, Aix-en Provence, France, 2010
Alasdair Foster, Imagining the Everyday, Australian Centre for Photography,
Sydney, 2010
Domenico De Clario, Duetto, Australian Experimental Arts Foundation, South
Australia, 2010
Asher Jay, ‘You and Eye, Reversed Twice’ Biennial, Photography Invitational,
Skotia Gallery, Santa Fe, 2010
Susan Bright, Between Worlds, Melbourne, 2009
Youngsil Sohn, ‘Image and Imagination’, Alice’s Mirror, Gallery SUN
Contemporary, Seoul, 2009
Youngsil Sohn, Humanscape, Seoul International Photography Festival, Seoul,
2008
Yusuke Minami, Artist File 2008, The National Arts Center, Tokyo, 2008
Natalie King, Games of Consequence, catalogue, Melbourne, 2008
Steven Tonkin and Catherine O’ Donoghue, ‘When Visual and performing arts
align’, Silver-Lined: Contemporary artists and the Performing Arts Collection, Arts
Centre, Melbourne, 2008
Penny Teale, FX in Contemporary Photography, McClelland Gallery and Sculpture
Park, Melbourne, 2008
Eiichi Tosaki, The Specter in Presence: Polixeni Papapetrou’s "Haunted Country",
Melbourne, 2008
Suzanne Davies and Peter Barnes, Living Elvis, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, 2007
Emma Bugden, Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?: Mythology, Fairytales and the
Occult, Te Tuhi Gallery, Manukau City, New Zealand, 2007
Robert Nelson, ‘Haunted Country: The Secret History of the Australian Bush’,
Haunted Country, 2006
Alasdair Foster, Changeling: Childhood and the Uncanny, Australian Centre for
Photography, Sydney, 2005
Alasdair Foster, Beyond Real, Dressing Up, Australian Centre for Photography,
Sydney, 2005
Kyla McFarlane, The Line Between Us: The Maternal Relation in Contemporary
Photography, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, 2004
Vivienne Webb, ‘Mystical Places’, Stills Gallery, Sydney, 2004
Ross Moore, ‘Olympia, Faciality and the Punctal Play of Darkness’, Phantomwise,
Monash University Faculty Gallery, Melbourne, 2004,
Bronwyn Rennex, Makebelieve: Photographic Fictions, Stills Gallery, Sydney,
2004
Anonda Bell, Fair Game, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2003
Alasdair Foster, Photographica Australis, Australian Centre for Photography,
Sydney and Asialink, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 2003
Zara Stanhope, ‘Serious play’, Saturday’s Child, Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art,
2003
Rex Butler, Phantomwise, Stills Gallery,