As one of Australia's most acclaimed photographers, Robyn Stacey has exhibited widely in Australia and internationally since the mid–1980s. In her most recent exhibition Nothing to see here (2019), Stacey combined her interests in art history with her preoccupation with light and vision.

Using the art historical device of the curtain, dating from Pliny the Elder’s fifth century book  Naturalis Historia, Stacey uses the curtain to denote a threshold between the object under consideration and its audience. The act of ‘drawing a curtain’ can be one of either revelation or concealment. The complete etymology of the word ‘photography’ is ‘drawing with light’ and in this body of work Stacey uses the curtain as an extension of this notion of light as a tool, illuminating the truth and masking it at the same time. The curtain takes centre stage as the background and foreground, subject and object.

Her works have been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions; including Know My Name - Australian Women Artists 1900 to Now, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and nationwide, 2020, a major commission by Deutsche Bank Australia,  Double Take  for the 2017 Sydney Contemporary Art Fair,  Magic Mirror  for the  Perth International Arts Festival, 2017, Magic Object: The Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia in 2016, The Photograph and Australia, Art Gallery of NSW, 2015, and Robyn Stacey: Cloud Land at the Museum of Brisbane, in 2015.

Stacey's work is held in notable public collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, National Portrait Gallery, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of Western Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of South Australia, Queensland Art Gallery, the City of Sydney, Samstag Museum, as well as numerous university, corporate and private collections.

Three substantial publications, house (2011), museum (2007) and herbarium (2004), captured Stacey's fascination with artifacts and specimens, and offered unique insights into the collections of Sydney Living Museums, the Macleay Museum at Sydney University and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney.

Stacey is an Adjunct Fellow at Western Sydney University, was a member of the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council from 2006–2008 and her work is studied as part of the curriculum in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia. She is represented by Darren Knight Gallery in Sydney, Jan Manton Art in Brisbane and PDNB Gallery in Dallas Texas.

Join artist Robyn Stacey in conversation with ABC presenter, journalist and writer Cassie McCullagh, broadcast live from Mosman Art Gallery on Thursday 13 Jan, 6 - 7pm.

Not available for this broadcast.