corrie ancone

Artist Statement

I immigrated to Australia at the tender age of five, leaving the Netherlands
with my family in 1953 for a childhood full of struggle and adventure.
I pursued an early passion for visual art and fashion design in the late 1960s,
attending the Adelaide Institute of Technology and later the South Australian School
of Art, a Fine Arts Diploma Course, majoring in painting, where my creativity, political
and spiritual awareness blossomed. After three photography classes, it was clear to me
that I had found my medium. I was completely seduced by the immediacy that
photography offered, as if I possessed the ability to stop time. Camera in hand,
I started to capture life through my artist’s lens by arresting single moments that
might otherwise pass by.
In the mid-1970s, while teaching arts and crafts, I landed my first freelance role
as a stills photographer on set for the South Australian Film Corporation. This led to
more photographic work in film, theatre, music, events, publications and portraiture.
These experiences helped me to hone fine art photography skills, giving my
imagery added dimension, depth and complexity. Flash forward to 1974, I had set
up a makeshift darkroom in the bathroom while utilising the lounge room as a studio,
working while my baby daughter slept. I was soon creating images by overlaying
black-and-white negatives using a process then called sandwiching.
In 1977, I had my first group exhibition, followed by a debut solo exhibition in
1978.
In 1981, with my grown babe and camera in arms, I returned to Europe, where I
spent 3 months on secondment as a photographer with the Dutch Theatre Company,
Silk (later called Kiss). My photographs of Kiss were widely exhibited and included
as part of Kiss’s ensuing Australia-wide tour, receiving rave reviews. Max Dupain
described her as being ‘blessed with velvet fingers’.
Back in Adelaide, I continued experimenting with overlays in black and white,
then toning and using a hand-colouring technique. It was an exciting time. I
also joined a rock’n’roll band, set up a singing duo and was involved in the women’s
movement, promoting the arts and women’s rights.
After relocating to Sydney in 1986, I set up my own, more permanent darkroom
and studio, establishing myself as a professional freelance photographer in film,
portraiture, theatre, music and the community. I began experimenting with black-and-
white and colour infrared film, cross-processing, montage and overlaying with
colour transparencies, becoming obsessed by the resulting ‘colour collisions’ – images
that were texturally lustrous and rich with mystery and sensuality. Using this approach,
I began to explore more deeply the beauty of the nude and the erotic sympathies of
the human body with the landscape, both natural and urban. I was inspired mostly
by early European Dadaists, Impressionists, and Baroque artists.
In 1990, following my first colour photography exhibition of this technique, I
was dubbed ‘Queen of the Overlays’. My signature use of collage and overlay created
I have remained on this path ever since, both analogue and digital, exhibiting solo and
in many group & online shows over the years.
In 2006, Belle Art was born, a company established to further showcase my work.
Belle Art has now produced a series of picture books, utilising my myriad of themes.
With an enduring passion for photography, I continue to explore the alluring
ambiguity of the human form, the lusciousness of nature and allegorical spaces in the
urban world.
Corrie currently lives on Dharawal Country in the Illawarra, a coastal region of NSW.