‘Turrangka…in the shadows’ surveys a decade of Tylor’s practice and, for the first time, brings together the most comprehensive selection of his unique daguerreotypes, expansive digital photographic series, hand-made Kaurna cultural objects, and furniture.
Opening Event: 3 July 2025
Exhibition Open: 4 July – 14 September 2025
Supported By: Art Gallery NSW.
The exhibition title is drawn from a Kaurna word, highlighting a significant ongoing aspect of Tylor’s practice: the learning and sharing of his Indigenous language. As well as shadow, turra also translates to reflection, image, and mirror.
At the core of Tylor’s practice is a continuously innovative programme of photographic intervention, disrupting the image to redact or highlight visual information. He systematically alters the reading of Country by excising information from the photographic print or inscribing language and place-names onto the surface of his daguerreotypes. These photographs provide a glimpse into Tylor’s broader practice of recreating Kaurna cultural artefacts, architecture, and ephemera. Antiquated analogue photographic processes including Becquerel daguerreotypes and hand-tinting are also used to generate a new archive of pseudo-historical images. Tylor’s recreations point to the absence of these images from the hegemonic depiction of colonial Australia’s visual history.
James Tylor is an Australian multi-disciplinary contemporary visual artist. He was born in Mildura, Victoria. He spent his childhood in Menindee in far west New South Wales, and then moved to Kununurra and Derby in the Kimberley region of Western Australia in his adolescent years. From 2003 to 2008, James trained and worked as a carpenter in Australia and Denmark. In 2011 he completed a bachelor of Visual Arts (Photography) at the South Australian School of Art in Adelaide and in 2012 he completed Honours in Fine Arts (Photography) at the Tasmanian School of Art in Hobart. He returned to Adelaide in 2013 and completed a Masters in Visual Arts and Design (Photography) at the South Australian School of Art. Since completing his tertiary education he has researched Indigenous and European colonial history with a focus on South Australia. He is an experienced writer, designer, curator, historian, researcher, art gallery installation and museum collection conservator. James currently works as a professional visual artist in Tarntanya Adelaide on Kaurna Land in South Australia.
Image credits: James Tylor, Turrangka… in the shadows, installation view. University of New South Wales Galleries. Photo by Jacquie Manning.
Text accessed from UNSW Gallery’s website
