MURRAY FREDERICKS
THE SALT LAKE
MUSEUM OF AUSTRALIAN PHOTOGRAPHY

25 November 2023 - 18 February 2024

Over the last 20 years, Murray Fredericks has established himself as one of the leading international artists challenging the traditions of landscape photography. In 2003 Murray Fredericks first visited Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre, one of the world’s largest salt lakes, located in the deserts of central Australia. Driven by the boundless potential of abstract space, Fredericks has returned 31 times over the past two decades, exploring perceptual states of being. His chapters, or ‘cycles’ as he calls them, have explored interventions with mirrors, and more recently fire, capturing infinity and the void through the lens of contemplative minimalism. Defined by light, colour and space, Fredericks’s photographs are a phenomenological response to the experience of existing in an ostensibly empty place without scale.

“The challenge is that it’s what I call a very traditional landscape, the landscape almost tells you what you can do there.” – Murray Fredericks, 2023

“I don’t believe what I’m doing at Lake Eyre is documenting the lake, the geographical nature. What I’m trying to do is to convey the emotional quality of my experience, and I’m trying to tap into something universal.” – Murray Fredericks, 2023