Sandy Edwards

Edwards' work largely drew from feminist ideals and the media's representation of women as well as the portrayal of Aboriginal communities in Australia.

• Name — Sandy Edwards • Birth Name — Sandra Edwards • Born — 1948 • Birthplace — Bluff, New Zealand • Education — 1972-1973, 1972-1973 Slade School Fine Art, London

Edwards majored in psychology in 1969 at the University of Sydney NSW. She went on to study film at the Slade School of Fine Art in London between 1972 and 1973.

Edwards, along with Helen Grace, Victoria Middleton and Lyn Silverman, formed the group "Blatant Image". Together they collaborated on photographic works that analysed the media's representation of women and created new works that contrasted these ideals. Edwards' interest in the portrayal of women began when she was a teenager; collecting photos from magazines in the late 1960s, she began to see discrimination within the imagery. Another source was the movies of the 1930s and 1940s. Edwards was interested in these worlds of fantasy and in particular the construction of female sexual identity within them. These influences pushed feminist views as a major point of her works, becoming most evident in A Narrative With Sexual Overtones (1983), which addressed the idea that no pleasure could be gained from the representation of women by the media, particularly film. The work was seen as a historical bridge between Marxist-feminist-semiotics and what would become feminist postmodernism further into the 1980s.

Edwards has participated in a wide array of photographic exhibitions throughout her career. Notable exhibitions include What’s in a face?: Points of View, AGNSW (2005-6); Close Relations, ACP (1998); and Shades of Light: Photography in Australia 1939-1988, NGA (1988). Her Sleep Late work of 2005-2006 was featured on a Melbourne billboard. Her body of work Paradise is a Place was highly acclaimed in the photographic community.

The CSR photography project (1978) was a commissioned body of work that looked into a range of social issues including both women's roles in the workplace and cultural differences in working environments. A range of Australian photographers participated in the project, including Max Dupain, Ed Douglas, Bill Henson and Debra Phillips. Each artist took a different approach to their work. Edwards demonstrated the tedious and repetitious nature of women's work through sequential prints of women performing their daily routine. The photographs were taken in a sugar refinery and were titled "192 cubes", "Sugar in the morning", "4:00pm time to go home...", "Sook is from Korea", "Beti and Maria", and "Beti is from Yugoslavia, Sook is from Korea." The titles and work itself emphasised the monotony of the workplace for women as well as the cultural challenges. Each of her works was compiled of a series of images printed as gelatin silver prints in black and white.

Paradise is a Place (1997) was a body of work published by Random House in collaboration with writer Gillian Mears. Edwards' photography was accompanied by Mears' non-fiction reminiscences of her childhood. The work looked into childhood on a broad spectrum. Edwards' photography portrayed the vulnerability and innocence of a young girl on the South Coast, New South Wales as she progresses from youth into adulthood. As well as being a published work, the images were exhibited as a solo exhibition printed as black and white silver gelatin prints displayed at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, Australia, 23 February through 31 March 1996.

Sandy Edwards is still a practicing documentary photographer with over twenty years of experience in the field. She has also curated a number of major photographic exhibitions, including Sydney Airport 2000 Art Project, and Sydney Looking Forward; Art and about (2003). In 2012, Edwards opened the ArtHere exhibition space in Redfern, which held seventeen exhibitions in its first year. She was previously curator at Stills Gallery in Sydney from 1991 until its closure in 2017, serving as co-director for fifteen years alongside Kathy Freedman. Stills Gallery was one of Australia’s leading commercial galleries dedicated to photography, representing artists including Trent Parke, Anne Ferran and William Yang. Edwards' most recent exhibition titled "Indeniable" was a retrospective displayed at Stills Gallery in 2004. The exhibition was compiled of large Type C photographic prints. The series was shot in colour and the photographs were taken over a period of ten years. The exhibition gave a vibrant insight into Edwards' life and the lives of those around her.

Edwards' work has received awards from the following organizations: • Sleep Late, Yarras Edge Urban Project, MIRVAC Docklands, Melbourne - 2006 • Out of Time Grant for Welcome to Brewarrina - Australian Council Grant to Budapest with Indigenous Artist - 1991 • After 200 Years project - Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies Commission - 1988 • Parliament House Photography Commission - 1986 • Grant for Blatant Image - Woman Photographers Group - 1981

• Portraits • 1991 - Stills Gallery, Sydney • The Intimate Experience • 1991 - Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney, NSW • The Nude in Photography 1860-1991 • 1991 - Josef Lebovic Gallery, Sydney