Staff Profiles

Izabela Pluta completed her undergraduate studies in Fine Art at The University of Newcastle (2002) and has an MFA (Research) from The College of Fine Art, UNSW (2009). She is currently a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Creative Arts, The University of Wollongong.

Izabela has exhibited widely in Australia - some of her most recent solo exhibitions include: Displaced images of distant objects, Monash Gallery of Art Melbourne (2011); On things mended and broken, Dianne Tanzer Gallery + Projects, Melbourne (2011); Sailing for the abyss, Nellie Castan Gallery, Melbourne (2010); à la dérive, Mop Projects, Sydney (2009); In (and against) time, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Canberra (2009); Singularity, The Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney (2008); Home(land), Westspace, Melbourne and The Fremantle Arts Centre (2007); Making Mirrors, Artspace, Sydney (2006); and Still (between), Esa Jaske Gallery, Sydney (2005). She has participated in numerous group exhibitions including: time AND space, Hazelhurst Gallery and Arts Centre (2010); Un, deux, trios, Alliance Francaise, Melbourne (2009); An ideal for living, Linden Contemporary Arts Centre, Melbourne (2008); Here and Beyond, Newcastle Region Art Gallery (2007); In hindsight the narrative may/may not have been as intended, Inflight Art, Hobart (2007); Scene–Observe the lay of the land, Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery (2007); Unsharp Unconscious, Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery at Inversek, Launceston (2006); In cold light, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2006); and From Space to Place, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth (2005).

She has undertaken artist residencies at Cowwarr Art Space, Victoria (2011); The Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (2008); The Australia Council for the Arts Studio, Barcelona (2006); Red Gate Studios, Beijing (2005); and International Art Space Kellerberrin (IASKA), Western Australia (2004). Izabela has received an Australia Council for the Arts New Work (Established) Grant (2011);  Australia Council for the Arts New Work (Emerging) Grant (2008); The Ian Potter Cultural Trust Grant (2008); The Freedman Foundation Traveling Scholarship for Emerging Artists (2007); and an Australian Postgraduate Award Scholarship (2007). She was a finalist in the Helen Lempriere Traveling Arts Scholarship (2002, 2003). In 2009 she was awarded The Qantas Foundation Encouragement of Australian Contemporary Art Award (NSW). In November 2011 she is travelling to the UK to undertake an Academic Research Exchange at the Art and Design Research Institute at the University of Ulster in Belfast.

Izabela Pluta’s research and practice examines the various ways that place is manifested or experienced. The relevance of these ideas to her creative interests stem from her personal history and dual nationality (Polish-Australian) as well as the notion of absence and presence in the concept ‘home’. Her photographic work investigates both a physical place of belonging, existing within a cultural framework, and space, which has its abstract quality in the language we use to describe an area or a distance between these physical places.  Her works have often comprised of photographs, found ephemera and photomurals to explore the artist’s interest in serendipitous encounters, the effects of time and how the photographic image operates as a vehicle for witnessing various states of ruin.

www.izabelapluta.net