I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the Wurundjeri country on which I live, and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. I pay my respects to their Elders past and present.
Wendy Catling (she/her) is a first generation Australian visual artist working primarily in photography. Her practice investigates social and cultural alienation as it is mediated through personal experience and memory. Engaging with archives and post-documentary methods, she examines human relationships through the material and textual traces of everyday life. Her work considers how environments and inscriptions articulate experiences of disconnection or trauma. Catling works across alternative and digital photography, photobooks and installation.
Wendy completed her MA - Photography in 2020 at Photography Studies College, Melbourne. Her first photobook, Nightshade, was published in 2022 earning critical recognition. In 2024 Nightshade was selected for an exhibition of Australian women photographers at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and was purchased for their permanent collection. In that year it received a highly commended award in the 2024 Australia-NZ Photobook Award and was also shortlisted in the Singapore International Photography Festival photobook award. Since 2001 Wendy has worked as an art and photography educator. Her early career in London during the 1980s - 90s included textile design, stage management, theatre administration, and sound and lighting technician for comedy improvisers. Wendy volunteers with victims of domestic violence and as a gallery tour guide.
Wendy’s works have been shown in the UK, USA, Kuwait, Singapore and Australia and are in collections at Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Gallery of Australia, Warrnambool Art Gallery, and in private collections. She lives on the outskirts of Naarm, (Melbourne), surrounded by native bushland reserves with her partner who is a sound designer, and multimedia artist.
Education:
- MA Photography - Photography Studies College, Melbourne
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Post Graduate Certificate of Education - Greenwich University, London
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BA Fine Art - Monash University, Melbourne
Exhibitions:
2026
PSC: Survey #1, PwC Trace Gallery, Southbank, Melbourne
2025
River Dialogues, PWC Building, Southbank, Melbourne, & Osaka Town Hall, Osaka, Japan
Supplementary Information Required, PSC Captured Exhibition Space, Southbank, Melbourne
Female in Focus x Nikon Photography 2024 Awards, London & Glasgow
2024
Singapore International Photography Festival, National Design Centre, Singapore
New Photobooks from Australia, V&A Museum, London
Dear Neighbour, Maroondah Federation Estate Gallery, Ringwood
2023
Speculative Horizons, Contemporary Art Platform, Kuwait
2020
Nightshade, Alternating Current, Windsor, Vic, Australia
2015
Hard Light, Ballarat International Foto Biennale, Vic, Australia
Light Sensitive (Group show), Art Intersection, Arizona, USA
Publications:
En un pais de madres (cover image), A M Homes, 2024, Editorial Anagrama, Barcelona.
Enough is Enough, 2023, (Eds) McInnes, V & Fraser, S,
Perimeter Editions & Art+Australia, Melbourne.
Awards:Cyanotype: L’Art et La Technique, 2023, Anderson, C Z, Paris, France.
Nightshade, 2022, Catling W, (design: Kim Mumm Hansen) M.33, Melbourne.
Cyanotype: The Blueprint in Contemporary Practice, 2019, Anderson C Z,
Routledge, New York.
Single Image winner, Female in Focus x Nikon 2024 Awards, British Journal of Photography, 2025.
Shortlisted, Singapore International Photography Festival photobook awards, 2024.
Honorable Mention, Australian-New Zealand Photobook Awards, 2024.
Finalist, Zart National Teacher-Artist Awards, 2021.Finalist, Ballarat International Foto Biennale Grad Foto Award, 2021.