“Gerard O’Connor’s and Marc Wasiak’s images are unlike the work of any other photographer of which I am aware … anywhere.” [Alasdair Forster, head of Australian Centre of Professional Photography NSW]
Australia’s wild child of photography, Gerard O’Connor, and his stylist, Marc Wasiak, have just become the only Australians invited to exhibit at the X1X Encuentros Abiertos in Buenos Aires, one of the world’s most important photography festivals.
The Encuentros Abiertos is part of the Festival of Light (Festival de la Luz), a collaborative of 27 festivals of photography worldwide, whose goal is to create international bonds of cooperation and exchange creative ideas. The collaboration involves Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Denmark, Mexico, Korea, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, among others.
More than 2,000,000 people attended the the 178 exhibitions of the Encuentros Abiertos 2014, held in 44 cities in Argentina and one in Spain.
O’Connor and Wasiak’s collection, Victoriana Pleasure Garden, has received the added honour of being invited by principal sponsor, Embajada de Mexico in Argentina, as a solo show at this year’s Encuentros Abiertos in August.
While O’Connor is a commercial photographer with advertising campaigns, for clients like MLA, Nando’s, New Balance, Nissan, Westfield, Adidas and Pepsi in his portfolio, his intricate artistic projects, always created with his stylist, Marc Wasiak, are self-funded.
The pair create large, and over the years increasingly complex, photographic tableaux that satirise a range of historical periods and have won international applause for their creativity.
Along the way, O’Connor has won the professional and fine art Canon Australian Photographer of the Year, awarded by Australian Institute of Professional Photography. The pair have also exhibited in the Australian Centre for Photography in Sydney as well as galleries nationally.
Recently, they were taken to China by Alasdair Forster, who curated their 35 piece solo exhibition at the Pingyao International Photography Festival, China’s largest and longest-running art-photo event. That exhibition, of work by more than 2,000 photographers, won the Jin Hou Niao Zun award for best international work at the festival.
The Victoriana Pleasure Garden collection was created with the National Trust and drew inspiration from lavish garden parties held in late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
The extravagant garden party shoot features a family and guests – based on the Sargoods who lived at Ripponlea – being entertained with a sumptuous feast, lawn games, fortune tellers, puppet shows and fantastical creatures. Preparation for the three day shoot took many months and post production, four months more. It was created at Ripponlea Estate, the single surviving Victorian house with botanical garden in the southern hemisphere.
To style the shoot, Wasiak and his team sourced props and wardrobe from across Australia, including specimens from the Taxidermy collection of the Melbourne Museum and canine extras from the Great Dane Club of Victoria.
All the special FX characters where created by a team of specialised hair and makeup artists over several months.
The City of Melbourne asked O’Connor and Wasiak to display it as part of its curated 2015 Fashion Festival, and displayed the works in the Conservatory in Fitzroy Hardens among the Spring Summer Flower displays, an honour given only once before – to the National Gallery of Victoria for a Monet Show.
Photograph by Stu Morley
O’Connor and Wasiak applied to exhibit at the Festival of Light Argentina last November, competing with applications from all over the world. The exhibition will be held in August 2016 at San Martin Cultural Center.
