Jessica Mauboy, 2018

Jessica Mauboy (b. 1989), Darwin-born singer, songwriter, and actor is a descendant of the KuKu Yalanji nation of Far North Queensland. As a girl, she sang with her mother and father and in a church choir with her grandmother. At the age of fourteen she won a singing competition at the Tamworth Country Music Festival. Two years later, in 2006, she captured national attention as the runner-up on the television program Australian Idol. Having signed to Sony Music Australia, she has so far achieved music sales over 2.8 million units, five top 10 albums, fifteen top 20 singles, four ARIA-accredited platinum selling albums and two ARIA Music Awards. Globally, her songs have been streamed more than 185 million times and her videos have been viewed more than 45 million times. She made her film debut in the Australian film musical Bran Nue Dae (2009); for The Sapphires (2012) she received the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Award and the Australian Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2016, Mauboy became the first Indigenous woman to achieve three consecutive weeks at number one for her album The Secret Daughter: Songs from the Original TV Series. In 2014, she became the first non-European solo artist to perform at the Eurovision Song Contest in Denmark. Frequently characterised as a role model for young Australian women, in 2015 she became an ambassador for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and in 2018 she was named an Australian tourism ambassador.

David Rosetzky

‘For my portrait of Jessica Mauboy, I wanted to create an image that would convey her depth of character, confidence and energy as a performer. Rather than presenting a single perspective, I chose the photographic process of double exposure, whereby the film is run through the camera twice, and two separate exposures combine to form a single image, thereby creating a more multi-faceted representation. On one side of the photograph she looks directly at the viewer – providing the opportunity for connection – and then overlapping this is a less tangible, more mysterious image of Jess, that in my mind relates to the magic of her music and her voice.’

David Rosetzky (b. 1970) is a Melbourne-based contemporary artist working across the media of photography, video and installation. Rosetzky’s black and white photographs and double exposures often allude to different psychological and emotional states, identity and selfhood. He is known for the elegance and aesthetic rigour of his art, which often draws upon the visual languages of contemporary advertising and cinema. Rosetzky has participated in solo and group exhibitions in Australia and internationally, including How to Feel at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 2011; the third ICP Triennial of Photography and Video, International Centre for Photography, New York, 2009; Viewpoints & Viewing Points: Asian Art Biennial, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, 2009; and Face Up, Hamburger Bahnhoff, Berlin, 2003. He was awarded the inaugural Anne Landa Art Award for Moving Image and New Media Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2005. His work is held in regional and state gallery collections across Australia. His digital video portrait of Cate Blanchett was commissioned to coincide with the opening of the new National Portrait Gallery building in 2008.

Commissioned with funds provided by Sony Music Entertainment Australia 2018