Arrayah Loynd Winner 2025 Rhonda Wilson Award

'''The forces that shape our lives today are largely invisible, to do with what goes on inside computers, and what goes on inside our bodies and minds. This is a profound challenge for all visual artists, not least for those working with photography (a medium we so often tempt into simplified truths). Arrayah Loynd’s sustained and restlessly creative work can be understood as series of gestures – speculative and experimental – to make physical pain and mental struggle at least thinkable through the visual. Collage and layering have long been used by artists to break with a limiting visual order, but it is Loynd’s careful and thoughtful attention to what gets collaged and layered that really matters. Each considered element brings its own rich set of allusions and poetic inferences. Meaning is not so much signalled in her work as conjured like constellations of shifting emphasis. Can we really know pain and difficulty? Is empathy ever enough?

It is never easy making a life as an artist, let alone a living. There are no guarantees. While artists accept this, it is also important that the wider world accepts that if we want a rich and nurturing culture life, we must support it whenever we can. No artist works in isolation but every artist needs a champion connect them to the wider world and a platform to amplify what they do. This is what Rhonda Wilson did, and this is what the award in her name is all about.

I knew Rhonda Wilson a little. It was her spirit of openness and her deep desire for connection that makes Arrayah Loynd such a worthy recipient of the award this year. We wish her every success''.
David Campany

ALL ROADS LEAD TO SALVATION (2024)

This body of work is a personal story; a visual telling of the mental and physical impacts of living with chronic pelvic pain while dealing with medical misogyny, misinformation, and incompetence. There is only a thin membrane between what the world sees and the lived reality of my life. I may seem fine as I mask the pain, but if you excavate, even just a little, you will find it is all completely raw. I am lost in the ebb and flow of pain, of heartbreak and despair. I am angry. I am difficult. I am defeated

ARRAYAH LOYND

Arrayah is a conceptual artist whose work explores themes of memory, trauma, neurodivergence, the female experience and otherness. She works with altered/expanded photography, archival imagery and mixed media. Born in the UK and raised in Australia, Arrayah works as a freelance artist and image consultant and has taught photography at various educational institutions within Australia specialising in concept development, colour management and fine art printing. Arrayah's work has been featured in Australian and International publications, art prizes and awards - including Lensculture, Head On Photo Awards, PhotoLucida Critical Mass, and Australian Photography Awards. Her work has also been exhibited in Australia, USA, Europe and UK and is held in private and public collections both within Australia and internationally. Arrayah has produced two monographs that were both selected as finalists for the Australian & NZ Photobook Awards 2024.

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“Being selected as the recipient of the Rhonda Wilson Award is an honour that I hold dear. It feels like an acknowledgement that, as an artist, I am moving in the right direction. That all of the hard work and dedication I have applied thus far has brought me to a place where I am able to imagine new possibilities. I look forward to connecting with and learning from others within the industry, and gaining a new understanding of what I need to do to grow and sustain a career in the arts. Thank you Debra Klomp Ching, Darren Ching and David Campany for placing your trust in me. I am incredibly excited to see what happens next.” - Arrayah Loynd