Izabela Pluta is an artist and academic interested in expanded photographic practice. She completed her undergraduate studies in Fine Art at The University of Newcastle (2002), an MFA at UNSW Art & Design (2009) and has a PhD from the School of the Arts, English and Media at The University of Wollongong (2017).
Born in Warsaw, Poland, and emigrating to Australia in 1987, she currently lives and works between the lands of the Awabakal and Worimi in Awabakal country (Newcastle, NSW) and the lands of the Bidjigal and Gadigal (Paddington, Sydney).
Through examining the role of photography and the function of images, Pluta works to explore the concept of ‘place’ as informed by her experience as a migrant to Australia. Her works call attention to the impermanence and mutability of geographic boundaries, and broader considerations of the effects of globalisation on culture, politics and the environment.
Pluta’s working methods embrace field working and embodied practice for shaping her process and engagement with the site. By drawing together processes of locating, fragmenting, translating and reconfiguring phenomena, both photographed and found, she uses methods of disruption to complicate the embodied viewing experience.
Izabela has exhibited widely and consistently in Australia and internationally since 2002; her select solo exhibitions include “Nihilartikel: Izabela Pluta”, UNSW Galleries that toured to the University of Newcastle’s WattSpace (2022); “Variable Depth, Shallow Water”, Spazju Kreattiv, Malta, (2021); and “Figures of slippage and oscillation”, Artspace, Sydney (2018).
Other recent commissions include the major work Counter forces for Bundanon Regional Art Museum's inaugural exhibition “From Impulse to Action” (2022); “Radical Slowness”, The Lockup, Newcastle (2022); and “Blue Assembly: Oceanic Thinking”, The University of Queensland (2022); and “The National 2019: New Australian Art”, AGNSW (2019).
Izabela’s work has also been shown at The Australian Centre for Photography; UTS Gallery; Queensland Centre for Photography; 24 HR Art; Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts; Canberra Contemporary Art Space; The NGV; Westspace; Linden; and The Monash Gallery of Art.
Her second artist book, “Nihilartikel”, was released in 2023, and in 2019, she was the recipient of the Perimeter Small Book Prize for her publication “Figures of slippage and oscillation”.
Izabela has received awards from The Australia Council for the Arts, The Qantas Foundation Encouragement of Australian Contemporary Art Award (2009), The Ian Potter Cultural Trust Grant (2008) and The Freedman Travelling Arts Scholarship (2007). She has been a finalist in several prestigious national art prizes, including the Bowness Photography Award at the Monash Gallery of Art (2023 and 2021), and the MAMA Foundation National Photographic Award (2018).
Her local and international residencies include Air 3331 Chiyoda, Tokyo; the Australia Council for the Arts Studio, Barcelona; Cite des Arts International, Paris; The Art and Design Research Institute, University of Ulster, Belfast; Red Gate Gallery, Beijing; International Art Space Kellerberrin; and the Marrgu Residency, Durrmu Arts Aboriginal Corporation at Peppimenarti, NT.
Izabela is represented exclusively by Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert
