Art – John McRae Photography & Studio

November 13, 2025November 17, 2025

Behind the scenes at the Affordable Art Fair – Carriageworks, Sydney

I was commissioned to photograph at Carriageworks in Eveleigh ahead of the annual Affordable Art Fair, Sydney. My brief was to focus on one of the participating galleries while staff brought artworks into the space to install in preparation for the weekend’s opening.

The image was made to accompany an article published in the Australian Financial Review (AFR) promoting the upcoming event — providing a great opportunity to give readers a glimpse behind the scenes at one of Sydney’s most popular art fairs.

Carriageworks is an inspiring venue to photograph, with its industrial textures and dramatic light, which help to create a striking backdrop for contemporary art. It was great to be able to document the period of set-up and quiet anticipation before the doors opened to the public, and the fair came to life.

February 2, 2025February 3, 2025

Exhibition in Melbourne for the Lunar New Year

Yashian Schauble (Australia China Art Foundation, ACAF) and Christina Zhao (Melbourne Chinese Business Association, MCBA) have collaborated on staging a wonderful event in Melbourne that features several art exhibitions as part of the Chinese Lunar New Year Festival in Melbourne.

As stated on the press release:

This year, as we celebrate the Year of the Wood Snake, Melbourne Chinatown will come alive with the city’s premier cultural event. Highlights of the festival include the iconic Millennium Dragon Parade, spectacular lion and dragon dances, dazzling lantern displays, and a feast of live performances ranging from traditional music to contemporary art showcases.

Themed around wisdom, intuition, and transformation, A Round Square Banquet explores personal identity and cultural inclusion through a stunning collection of over 30 works by artists from around the globe.

I am happy to say that a number of my photographs are represented in the exhibition at the Chinese Museum in Melbourne (through February 9). Information about three of my works is listed below.

***Ali & Osso Buco,*** 2012
Pigment inkjet on cotton rag, 60 x 90cm
Edition 1 of 9, (3AP)

Ali sits at the dinner table, an embodiment of indulgence fused with a certain effortless refinement. A glass of red wine rests beside him, its rich colour, a perfect match for the Italian speciality of Osso Buco before him. His presence radiates a raw, unapologetic masculinity, sensuality, and sexuality, infusing the vast dining hall with an almost palpable energy that contrasts sharply with conventional notions of fine dining. A single yellow tulip, vibrant and unpretentious, symbolizes his joy—an outward expression of his unrestrained pleasure as he savours each bite, completely immersed in the moment.

Winner of the critics choice award at the 2013 “Shoot the Chef” competition held by the Sydney Morning Herald

***Portrait of Margaret Olley in her Paddington Studio***, 2011
Pigment inkjet on cotton rag, 66cm x 154cm
Edition of 6 (1AP) (Signed lower right)

In mid-2011, had the great pleasure of photographing renowned Australian artist Margaret Olley in her Paddington studio, a place well known for its colourful clutter and referred to by some friends as ʻThe Dolls Houseʼ. In my portrait, Margaret is seated in her painting chair, confronting the lens with her particular sense of candour and an uncommon frailty. As far as I know, this may well be the last photo taken of her before her death the following
month in July. Christine France – art critic, author of Margaret Olley (1990), commented, “It is a wonderful photo in that it captures both the vulnerability and sense of enquiry which entered her face in the last months of her life”.

The Portrait was a selected finalist in the 2012 National Photographic Portrait Prize, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. It won the inaugural People Choice Award at the National Photographic Portrait Prize.

The Tweed River Art Gallery purchased the work as part of their permanent collection with the intention of displaying the portrait as part of the Margaret Olley Art Centre, Murwillumbah.

***Amirah I***, Sydney 2017
Pigment inkjet on cotton rag 92cm x 63cm
Edition of 9 (AP)
(from the series “Spot the Arab”)

This striking portrait of Amirah forms part of the “Spot the Arab” series of photographs. The project engages with portraiture as a vehicle for exploring complex themes of identity, including religion, race, gender, orientation, nationality, and freedom.

Presented initially in a game-like format, Spot the Arab invites viewers to question whether the subject of each image self-identifies as Arab, thus prompting reflection on assumptions and societal constructs.

For the series, the artist imposes a Middle Eastern costume on each subject, using it as a tool to both veil and reveal aspects of cultural identity. Each subject is then asked to articulate their own sense of identity, a process that challenges preconceptions, stigma, and prejudice.

At the time of this photograph, Amirah was a social worker in Sydney’s western suburbs and identified as an Egyptian Arab woman.

Pictured from left: Yashian Schauble (ACAF) and Christina Zhao (MCBA)

August 16, 2023August 20, 2023

Polly shows at new Sydney gallery

Polly helping me out by holding up the colour card for our shots in her Balmain studio.

Pollyxenia Joannou-Reddin is an award-winning Sydney-based contemporary artist working in painting, drawing, sculpture and installations.

She has only recently returned from spending a couple of years with her partner in London. London, however, is no stranger to Polly as she completed her MA in Communication Design at Central Saint Martins (UK).

The breaking news, however, is that Polly is having a new exhibition in a gallery on the fringe of the Sydney central business district, opening 23 August, 2023.

“The work or process is a path that evolved rather than a conscious, academic process. I see the world or landscape as structured architectural codes; the repetition of lines; 3D structures of an urban landscape and what I perceive as unnecessary, I discard. I seek in my work a quiet corner. The work provides a pause or a resting place before moving on. I try and achieve this through colour palette, a balance of aesthetics via shapes, line, repetition, and materiality.” (Pollyxenia Joannou-Reddin)

I love Polly’s clean, intelligent work…so it’s a pleasure to photograph and contemplate each piece as we manoeuvre it into position for the final capture.

Check out Polly’s work at CBD Gallery in the city (until 23 September), a relatively new space which also runs workshops in various topics.

August 23, 2021August 23, 2021

The joy of coincidence – similar pose, different continent

Ceramic figure by Dutch artist Frans Franciscus, 2021

Sometimes in the art world, coincidences can be a great joy. I just received an invitation to a solo presentation of new ceramic sculptures by Dutch artist Frans Franciscus (www.fransfranciscus.nl), showing one of his elongated, nude figures. Franciscus has posed his male subject upside-down, like a naked totem. Immediately I was reminded of one of my own works, a surreal portrait of Olympic diver Matthew Mitcham. In my photograph taken in Sydney ten years ago, Matt poses in his diving trunks, balanced on his hands in the abandoned rail yards at Lilyfield.

John McRae, Matthew Mitcham, Lilyfield, 2011

The silhouette and mood are very similar in both of our works. Franciscus says he “combines or re-arranges compositions of old masters depicting biblical stories in an up-to-date and idiosyncratic fashion.” Using sculpture, paintings, drawings and photographs, his art tackles racism, discrimination and social discomfort. I sometimes do the same thing in my photographs. Frans Franciscus, who is also a great friend of my mate the Dutch artist Erwin Olaf, will be featured in “This Art Fair” to be held at the Kromhouthal in Amsterdam, August 26-29, 2021, with seven new sculptures presented in his solo called as “Clay Only”. Inspired by medieval and Renaissance painting, Surrealism, religious iconography and classical mythology, Franciscus’ artwork always tries to create space for a broader view on humankind.

My portrait photograph of Matt was taken in the industrial area still “under development for the West Connex”, at the site next to the Lilyfield light rail, from where you can see the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was taken as part of a fashion shoot that I was staging for the Australian label “Gossip”. I had decided to incorporate different narratives into the fashion shots … to that end I enlisted “extras” to appear in the backgrounds. Matt, who at the time lived nearby, was included as part of this concept.

John McRae, Fashion shoot for Gossip Couture, 2011

This was only three years after Matt had won his gold medal at the Beijing Olympics in the 10-metre diving event, with what is still the highest-scoring single dive in Olympic history. My photos were taken in March, 2011.

January 3, 2019January 21, 2019

Works by John McRae as part of the project: The Mother in Art by art.es magazine in Spain

John McRae’s work is featured as part of “The figure of the mother in art: an embematic representation of love” by Pepe Alvarez and Fernando Galan, published in art.es in December 2018 (pages 59-64). It is part of the special issue of the Spanish art magazine dedicated to the theme of the mother. The article discusses the broader concept of maternity in Michelangelo’s “Pietà”, the female viewpoint as presented by the contemporary artists Nathalie Djurberg, Leiko Ikemura, Francesca Marti’, Isabel Munoz, Yoko Ono and Cindy Sherman, and the work of James McNeill Whistler, John McRae, Roman Ondak and Tatsumi Orimoto. John McRae is represented by Lois (2006), a portrait of his dead mother. This work was chosen as a finalist in the 2006 Olive Cotton Award for Photographic Portraiture at the Tweed Regional Gallery in Murwillumbah, Australia.

As the art.esarticle states, “The figure of the mother, and maternity as a concept, have played an important role in the historical development of mankind as reflected in its cultural manifestations. The cult of the mother is as old as humanity … a link to the earth, making the mother the only real and tangible point of reference.”

October 16, 2013May 30, 2022

Exhibition of finalist’s images – Shoot The Chef

If you’re anywhere near Star Casino over this month, drop in and have a look at the 24 finalist images from the “Shoot The Chef” competition, on exhibition in the foyer area.

Ali & Osso Buco John McRae, 2012 (Critic’s choice winner 2013 Shoot The Chef)

Finalist’s images on exhibition at: The Star, 80 Pyrmont Street, Pyrmont 2009 from October 10 to October 31