Lisa Stonham is a Visual Artist and MFA student residing on unceded Gadigal Land (Sydney, Australia). Stonham’s multi-disciplinary practice is driven by photography, leading to the creation of two- and three-dimensional works that explore space, light, and time. Her work extends the boundaries of photography into physical space through experimentation with surface, volume, light and reflection. Working through photo-media into sculpture, video, and installation, she seeks to erase the distinctions between mediums, inviting hybridisations and slippages.
Underpinning these visual investigations is an interest in phenomenology and how the act of seeing involves the body in perceptual and psychological terms. Situated within the realm of the present-moment experience of sensory phenomena, she investigates the variability of perception and the physiological and interactive dynamics of the viewer.
Transparent and reflective materials invite the viewer into the uncertain depths of translucent photographs, fostering a deliberate ambiguity and tension between the perception of the photographic object and its surroundings. The specular acrylic surfaces assert their own presence, uniquely capturing and duplicating the present moment in real-time. Layers of fragmented images are carefully composed, considering both planar and volumetric space, to challenge and resist a singular, stable viewpoint.
This generation of both physical and perceptual effects invites us to rethink our realities, questioning how we see ourselves in physical, architectural and internal, psychological spaces.
Solo exhibitions include Everyday Wonder (2024), Looking Forward, Looking Through … Future Perfect (2023) at Five Walls Gallery, Melbourne; Conversations with My-Self and Others at M16 Artspace( 2022), Canberra; and Perfect Moment … Right Now (2021) at 107 Projects, Sydney.
In 2024, she was awarded The Perth Centre for Photography - Contemporary Landscape in Photography Prize. Stonham has been a finalist in numerous art prizes including the Canberra Contemporary Photography Prize (2024), the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award (2024, 2023, 2022, 2021,2020, 2018, 2016); Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize (2022, 2019); Contemporary Landscape in Photography Award (2022, 2016); Sunshine Coast Art Prize (2020); Hurford Portrait Award (2020); Head-On Mobile Award (2019); Iris Award (2018); and the KAAF Art Prize (2015).
Her work has been profiled in The Sydney Morning Herald and reviewed in The Canberra Times and is held in private collections around Australia.