Homage to a Rectangle

Cherine Fahd was born in Sydney in 1974. For fifteen years Fahd has worked primarily with photography. In playful explorations of the body and concealment her images present the surrealist tendency to draw on photography’s connections to performance, sculpture and painting.

She studied drawing, painting and sculpture at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW (Bachelor of Fine Arts, Honours 1993-1997), where she also achieved a Master of Fine Arts (2003). In 2016 she was awarded a Doctorate (Fine Arts) from Monash University, Melbourne, for her research titled, Hiding From the Camera For the Camera.

Fahd’s extensive exhibition history has seen her work shown in major public institutions in Australia and internationally; Sydney/Beirut-Beirut/Sydney, ESPACE SD, Beirut, Lebanon (1999), operation nose nose operation, Gallery 4A, Sydney (1999) Masques, Recontres Internationales de la Photographie, Arles, France (2001), into the blue, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne (2002), Supernatural Artificial, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, Japan (2004), Light Sensitive, Ian potter Museum, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2006), Perfect for every occasion, Photography Today, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne (2007), Stage Unstage, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, Sydney, Multiplicities, The University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane, QLD (2011), Afterglow: Performance Art & Photography, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne (2011), In Camera In Public, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2012), Globalization – Connections – Time – A dozen Worlds or the day has 45 hours, Hannover, Germany (2012), Photo LA, Queensland Centre for Photography, Los Angeles (2014), Crossing Paths with Vivian Maier, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2014), Australian Art, NGA Contemporary, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2015)

Her work is also represented in significant public collections such as the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, National Gallery of Victoria and Artbank as well as private and corporate collections. She has been the recipient of numerous New Work Grants from the Australia Council for the Arts (2014, 2007, 2004, 2002, 1999) along with art awards and residencies such as the NSW Women & Arts Fellowship from Arts NSW (2005), Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Foundation for the Arts Photography Award (2004), National Photography Prize (2010) and the Moya Dyring Studio from the Art Gallery of New South Wales (2003).

She is currently Lecturer in Photomedia at The University of Sydney, Sydney College of the Arts.