Art Bites: Artist Talk Atong Atem

Spend an evening with prolific South Sudanese Melbourne based artist Atong Atem, whilst experiencing her exquisite video works on the Bunjil Place Outdoor Screen. Atem continues her exploration of identity and culture through the creation of surreal and fantastical environments. Faces are physically obscured through vibrant use of colour that showcases individuality and allows her subjects to exist in a futuristic yet idealistic space. Atem invites viewers to contemplate how their identity exists in the world and the ways in which we construct images and stories to understand ourselves and our surroundings.

Atong Atem
Atong Atem is an Ethiopian born, South Sudanese artist and writer living in Narrm/ Melbourne. 

Atem’s work explores the inherent intimacy of portraiture and photography as well as the role photographers take as story tellers. Atem interrogates photography as a framework for looking at the world and positioning people in it. 
 
Referencing the works of photographers Malick Sidibe, Philip Kwame Apagya and Seydou Keita, Atem creates a visual representation of a relationship to culture. She works primarily with photography and video to explore migrant narratives and postcolonial practices in the African diaspora, the relationship between public and private spaces and the exploration of home and identity through portraiture.
 
Atem has exhibited her work across Australia, including the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, the National Gallery of Victoria, MUMA Monash, Gertrude Contemporary, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art and Internationally at Red Hook Labs in New York, Messums in London, Vogue Fashion Fair in Milan and Unseen Amsterdam art fair.
 
In March 2022, Atong Atem was announced the inaugural recipient of the La Prairie Art Award 2022, an acquisitive award presented by the Art Gallery of NSW and La Prairie and will attend Art Basel later the same year for an international artist residency provided by the Award. 
 
Atem was the recipient of the National Gallery of Victoria and MECCA M-Power scholarship in 2017 as well as the Brisbane Powerhouse Melt Portrait Prize in 2016. 
 

Image: 'Ego 2,' Atong Atem, 2019, Ilford smooth pearl print, 60 x 90 cm, edition of 10 + 2 AP

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