Queenslander Glen O’Malley stands as a key figure among a generation of photographers who depicted the domestic lives of Australians in the 1970s and 1980s. O’Malley was one of six established photographic artists to exhibit in the landmark 1988 show Journeys North at Queensland Art Gallery. As the exhibition’s title suggests, the photographers’ work came from exploratory journeys to various far-flung corners of the state—O’Malley visited Far North Queensland, ventured as far west as the Northern Territory border, and spent time in suburban Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

The idea was simply to document the lives of Queenslanders across a spectrum of demographics, and O’Malley’s work emerged from time spent actually living with his subjects. Among his contributions to Journeys North were notable works such as Good Friday 1987, Kelvin Grove, Brisbane – Gerard and his girlfriend hung out his washing, 1987, and 14 March 1987, Red Hill, Brisbane – The O’Malleys were invited to lunch at the Pooles, 1987. The other photographers were Graham Burstow, Lin Martin, Robert Mercer, Charles Page and Max Pam.

Four of O’Malley’s images from Journeys North are now part of Suburban Sublime: Australian Photography, an exhibition at QAGOMA that aims to celebrate the minutiae—and hidden moments of beauty—of everyday lives. Here he discusses how Journeys North unfolded, and where it fits in the context of his long and storied career.

Barnaby Smith: How you did you initially develop a photographic interest in domesticity and suburbia, and what visual aspects of suburban life were interesting to you?

Glen O’Malley: The book Suburbia (1973) by [American photographer] Bill Owens was important. I had it before I set out on the Journeys North trip, and even though his was a very different society—and Bill photographed in the suburb in which he lived [Livermore, California]—the book made me look at how interesting the ordinariness of suburbia was. There’s also Robert Frank and Lee Friedlander, who very much dealt with suburbia—I think they influenced my whole generation.

Going back earlier, I grew up with a father who encouraged me to paint. But I was eventually given a Werra viewfinder camera that I used to solve painting composition problems, and then got completely hooked on photography as image-making in itself. And like many of my peers, we just started to photograph things around us. We were all, to an extent, influenced by people like Cartier-Bresson and some American photographers doing similar things, but I think our Australian stuff had a character of its own. That then involved me photographing such accessible things as circuses and beer gardens, and I think suburban backyards just crept into it along the way.

BS: How did Journeys North come together as an exhibition?

GOM: The photographers were given the brief to go out and take photos of Queensland life. I knew four of the others—Max Pam I’d never met—and we all more or less did it separately. We were all selected by the curator Sue Smith.

I’m Queensland’s longest exhibiting photographer now—I first exhibited in 1975. So I had a few years of stuff under my belt before Journeys North, including an exhibition called Four and Half Months in the North, 1979.

BS: You actually lived in the houses of the people you photographed for Journeys North. How did that come about, and what was the thinking behind it?

GOM: A lot of planning went into it. Some of the people who I stayed with were people who I had encountered during the trip for Four and a Half Months in the North; the Queensland Arts Council gave me some contacts; and I had some recommendations from people.

It blew me away that people welcomed me into their homes. I was shooting on a beautiful Rollei camera with a standard lens, with 16 shots on a roll for each house. All I did was turn up, chatted, had a cup of tea or a beer, and waited until they were ready and relaxed, and then went about what they were doing.

I stayed in each house for one night. If I had just arrived and said, “I want to photograph you for the next half an hour”, there’d have been more self-conscious posing. As it was, you’re accepted as a guest or a member of the family for the time being. I had no idea really when I got to a place what I was going to photograph.

All in all, I was photographing for three months—probably 90 days and 90 different places. I took up the offer of anyone who would let me photograph. I was looking for domestic interiors, backyards and verandahs, but if it went a different way, that’s fine. Jun’ichirō Tanizaki wrote an essay about 90 years ago called ‘In Praise of Shadows’, and he said, “Beauty always arises from the realities of daily life.”

BS: Alongside depicting domestic life, you are known for your interest in surrealism. How was that expressed in the Journeys North images?

GOM: I’ve always been very excited by surrealism in the world, that’s very important to me. I always go looking for the wacky, the strange, surreal. In Good Friday 1987 for example, I think I find the sculptural qualities of the washing on the line against the old house, plus the little dance that Gerard’s doing, plus the girlfriend’s feet, plus the banana trees. All add together to make that weirdness.

I don’t think for something to be surreal it’s got to knock you over the back of the neck—it can be a very subtle thing. People like Lee Miller made it subtle. I’m very proud of the fact that Antony Penrose [Miller’s son], who is arguably the world authority on surrealist photography, had said that my work is in the true spirit of the original surrealist photography.

BS: Your use of black and white is inherent to your style. I assume there was never any question of the images for Journeys North being otherwise?

GOM: Film used to be expensive! I basically always shot in black and white because that’s what I could afford. I think that’s why 1970s and 1980s photography is so heavily black and white, because that applied to many of us.

BS: What lessons about Queenslanders, or Australians, did you take from the Journeys North project?

GOM: I think everyone’s got their nice side when you get to know them. I think there was, and still is, a lot of fear out there about what people don’t know about other people. People were certainly very kind to me without knowing me, were very receptive to me, and very tolerant. In various trips I witnessed things we would pretty obviously call racism, but also witnessed a lot of inter-race respect.

BS: Finally, Suburban Sublime and Journeys North might position you as an artist preoccupied with domesticity and suburbia, but that’s far from the case. Your 2019 retrospective, What Is a Dream? showed your range of subjects and styles.

GOM: I think most people see the breadth of what I do. I think people see me as a surrealist, as someone who has a love affair with Japan, as someone who enjoys collaborating with other artists. It’s just the context of this exhibition that has me ‘type-cast’ with suburbia, and that’s understandable.

Suburban Sublime: Australian Photography
Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art
On now—17 August

This interview was originally published in the January/February 2025 print issue of Art Guide Australia.