Amy Woodward
Amy Woodward is a photographic artist currently living and working on Kabi Kabi/Gubbi Gubbi Country (Sunshine Coast) Australia.
Intrigued by the quiet magnificence, fragility and fleeting nature of everyday life – and even moreso since birthing her first child – Amy approaches her practice with a deep sensitivity and reverence for all stages of life, but pays particular attention to the early motherhood experience and the whirring visual hum of domesticity. Using an honest and intimate storytelling approach, Amy works with a mixture of digital, medium format and 35mm film.
Her work explores the intensity, chaos and tender beauty of early parenthood + family life, unflinchingly and intuitively. Amy’s own journey into matrescence was clouded with postpartum depression, anxiety, an overwhelming sense of loneliness and invisibility – like so many others – which drives her desire to investigate the ever-present contradictions within the motherhood experience; the intoxicating highs and lows.
The discovery of her and her first son’s neurodivergence at around two years postpartum has also opened up entirely new narratives and perspectives – an unfolding story currently weaving throughout her personal work as she learns to navigate this new terrain. Amy is driven to continue exploring motherhood from a diverse range of angles and perspectives, and aims to represent the varied ways in which this journey can play out along the intersections of gender identity, family structure, race, socioeconomic status, disability, mental health, and other factors that may shape the experience of mothering/motherhood.
Born in country Victoria on Pangerang Country, she was drawn to the medium of photography from an early age as a way to catalogue the constant changes around her. Moving houses, schools and states was a regular occurrence during her childhood. In her mid teens, she began shooting street and documentary work, before moving to Melbourne to study her BA Photography at RMIT, graduating in 2016.
Amy’s work has been recognised in the William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize (finalist, 2021) Photo Collective Stories (finalist, 2021) Photo Collective Australian Photography Awards Portrait Category (finalist 2020 & 2021) The Independent Photographer Portrait Award (3rd place, 2021) PALM* Photo Prize (shortlisted 2021) and the Head On Photo Awards (semi-finalist, 2021) amongst others. Her work has been exhibited at the Monash Gallery of Art, Center for Contemporary Photography, Tinning Street (solo), OPR gallery in Milan, 10 14 Gallery in London, and screened as part of the PhotoVogue 10 year anniversary video at PhotoVogue Festival. She has also been featured in publications such as D – La Repubblica, Rolling Stone IT and Creative Review.
