Museum Musings: Sullivan + Strumpf (Sydney) Presents Polly Borland’s Polymorph

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – Sullivan+Strumpf is proud to present Polly Borland’s Polymorph this November, in a solo exhibition featuring new work from Borland.

Born in Melbourne in 1959, Borland has since relocated to Los Angeles in 2011, where she now resides. Borland initially established herself as a portrait photographer in Australia, having shot for numerous international publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Independent and Dazed and Confused, leading to her win of the John Kobal Photographic Portrait Award in 1994, and the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award in 2017.

Polly Borland, Morph 30, 2018, archival pigment print, 92 x 78.5 cm, Edition of 6 + 3 AP

These days though, Borland now presents work of a different kind, with Polymorph showcasing new works from the series ‘Morph’ made in collaboration with model Sibylla Phipps. In the series, Borland continues her exploration of the possibilities of abstraction and the surreal, combining anthropomorphic soft-sculpture and abstracted portraiture. These strange forms then present the human form in surprising and unfamiliar ways, simultaneously tender and troubling, poignantly human and pointedly not.

Polly Borland
Morph 20, 2018
archival pigment print
92 x 78.5 cm
Edition of 6 + 2AP

These works will also be accompanied by five portraits of Borland by five invited artists: Emma Borland, Tony Clark, Eliza Hutchinson, Elizabeth Newman, Constance Zikos and Christina Zimpel. Underscoring the ideas of distortion and transformation explored in the Morph series, Borland asked each artist to respond to the portrait invitation in any way they wished to in terms of size, medium and style, creating five images across which the artist’s face is repeatedly recast and reinterpreted.

Polly Borland
Morph 31, 2018
archival pigment print
92 x 78.5 cm
Edition of 6 + 3 AP

A little strange, a little uncanny, yet altogether too familiar, come to see the very essence of the human form writhe and warp before your eyes as Borland manipulates colour and form with expertise to tease out these dark and unexpected facets of the human form and spirit.

Polymorph runs at Sullivan+Strumpf Sydney, 799 Elizabeth St, Zetland, Sydney NSW Australia, from 24th November to 22nd December 2018. Admission is free. For more information, visit their website here