Trent Parke (born 1971) is an Australian photographer. He is the husband of Narelle Autio, with whom he often collaborates. He has created a number of photography books; won numerous national and international awards including four
World Press Photo awards; and his photographs are held in numerous public and private collections. He is a member of
Magnum Photos.
Parke was born and brought up in Newcastle, New South Wales; he now lives in Adelaide, South Australia. He started photography when he was twelve. At age 13 he watched his mother die from an asthma attack. He has worked as a photojournalist for
The Australian newspaper.
Martin Parr and Gerry Badger say that Parke's first book
Dream/Life is
"as dynamic a set of street pictures as has been seen outside the United States or Japan".
In 2003 he and his wife, the photographer Narelle Autio, made a 90,000 km trip around Australia, resulting in Parke's books
Minutes to Midnight and
The Black Rose.
Parke became a member of the
In-Public street photography collective in 2001. He became a Magnum Photos nominee in 2002 and a member in 2007; the first Australian invited to join.
Source: Wikipedia
Trent Parke, the first Australian to become a Full Member of the renowned Magnum Photo Agency, is considered one of the most innovative and challenging photographers of his generation. Moving beyond traditional documentary photography, Parke’s work sits between fiction and reality, offering an emotional and psychological portrait of family life and Australia that is poetic and often darkly humorous.
In 2015, solo exhibition
The Black Rose, premiered at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Featuring photographs, lightboxes, video, written texts, and books, the exhibition lead viewers through a vast, visual narrative that explored the meaning and transience of life from both personal and universal perspectives.
Parke has received numerous awards and accolades. He was a Finalist, with collaborator Narelle Autio, in the 2016 Basil Sellars Art Prize and was Winner of the 2014 Photography Prudential Eye Award. Whilst working as a press photojournalist he won five Gold Lenses from the International Olympic Committee, and multiple World Press Photo Awards in 1999, 2000, and 2005. In 2003 he was awarded the prestigious
W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography.
Parke’s work has featured in exhibitions and art fairs across the globe and is held in major institutional collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, Museum of Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of South Australia, Artbank, Magnum London and Magnum Paris. In 2014, Steidl released two hardback monographs of Parke’s work,
Minutes to Midnight and
The Christmas Tree Bucket. The self-published book,
Dream/Life, a collaboration with Narelle Autio, was awarded second place in the American Picture of the Year Award for Photography Books in 2000.
Source: Stills Gallery
