Narelle Autio

Narelle Autio is a multi award winning photographer whose artistic career spans over 30 years. In 2002 she became the first Australian to have won the venerable international Leica Oskar Barnack Award for her visceral photo series ‘The Coastal Dwellers’. Her complex compositions represent a great homage to the beauty of Australian life.

Autio’s photographs are best known for saturated colour, intense light, and blue waters enveloping swimmers which capture Australia’s relationship with the environment. She has won two World Press awards, an American Picture of the Year award and two Walkley awards, as well as twice being a finalist in the Basil Sellers Art Prize, and a finalist in both the Fleurieu Art Prize and the Olive Cotton Award. Her work has featured in national and international exhibitions, including solo presentations of The Summer of Us at the Australia Embassy in Paris (2014-2016) and the Bibliotheque Departementale des Bouches-du-Rhone, France (2014).

Autio’s work is held in the collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of South Australia, Parliament House Collection, Artbank, National Gallery of Victoria, Samstag Museum of Art, Australian National Maritime Museum, as well as many private and corporate collections.