An abundance of caution 2024

Ruth Maddison (b. Melbourne, 1945) is one of Australia’s foremost photographers. For over 45 years Maddison has been exploring ideas surrounding relationships, working lives, and communities through portraiture and social documentary photography. An entirely self-taught practitioner, Maddison shot her first roll of film in 1976 and had her first solo exhibition in 1979 at the Ewing Gallery, Melbourne, where she showed her hand-coloured series, “Christmas holiday with Bob’s family’. Maddison’s work is represented in major public collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the National Library and the State Libraries of Victoria and New South Wales.

In 1996 Maddison relocated from Melbourne to Eden, on the south coast of NSW. For her new exhibition at SECCA, An abundance of caution, 2024, Maddison introduces drawings and embroidered text on re-purposes doilies to her practice for the first time.