I first became acquainted with Elaine Campaner’s art through a group of small colour prints from her 1999 Mice series. These were included in the showing of private collector Peter Fay’s multimedia collection at the National Gallery of Australia in 2004 under the title Home Sweet Home. The collection was subsequently acquired by the Gallery.
Elaine’s mice fitted the ironic title of the Fay collection show perfectly. They were real but dead and stillborn creatures staged in tableaux of small toys in a domestic setting.
It hit me in the eye that this artist was brave and bold and had a world view of her own that was ostensibly playful on one level, deadly serious politically and socially and spiritually on another. The works were not ‘women’s home craft’ but sophisticated and critically informed. It seemed also at that time and still today, that it has been women photographers since the 1970s that have addressed issues that threaten the world and deny justice.
Elaine would go onto make ever more ambitious, ingeniously staged works using un-disguised household props addressing major topical issues as well as deeply personal ones.
When we look at Elaine’s work we willingly suspend our disbelief as we puzzle out the various levels of meaning in her universe. Hopefully we take home enough to change our views or have empathy for others as a result.
Gael Newton
18 Nov 2020