Cherine Fahd facts for kids
Cherine Fahd is an Australian artist who takes amazing photos and makes cool video art. She also teaches photography at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Her work and ideas have been shared in art books, magazines, and news articles. Her art has been shown in many countries like Australia, Israel, Greece, and Japan. She's won many awards and had special opportunities to create art in places like India and Sydney.
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Growing Up and Learning
Cherine Fahd was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1974. Her family moved there from Lebanon in the 1950s. When she was 11, her teacher took her class to an art show at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. From that day on, Cherine knew she wanted to be an artist! She even pretended to have dentist appointments to visit the art gallery instead of school.
She went to the College of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales. She earned her first degree in 1996. She first studied painting, but later became very interested in photography. She wanted to capture real moments and actions with her camera. She started working as an artist in the 1990s.
In 2003, she earned a higher degree in Fine Arts from the same university. After this, photography became her main focus. She later earned her highest degree, a PhD, from Monash University in 2016. Today, she is a professor and leads the photography program at the University of Technology Sydney.
She still creates art in Sydney. She shares a studio in her backyard with her artist husband, their children, and their dog.
Her Artworks
Cherine Fahd's early photos captured everyday actions. Now, she explores the difference between photos that are planned and those that happen naturally. She also makes people think about why we pose for pictures. Some of her art uses humor to look at ideas about who we are, our background, how we look, and what we hide.
She often creates art in a series, which means a group of related artworks. One of her first series was about noses! People in the photos had bandages on their noses, like they'd had surgery. Other series include Sleepers, Camouflage, and National Types of Beauty.
In 2003–2004, while in Paris, France, Cherine took photos of people against a stone wall. It was a very hot summer, and the city had sprinklers to cool people down. Her photos show how different people reacted to the heat and water.
In 2011, at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art in Melbourne, Cherine invited visitors to share their fears. She then created posters with text to show these fears.
For her series Shadowing Portraits (2014–2015), Cherine asked other photographers to pose for her. She asked each person to strike a pose. Then, she copied their pose and hid behind them in the photo. It was like she was in the picture, but also hidden by the person in front. This series was part of her PhD work.
In 2016–2017, Cherine created You Look like.... This series featured photos of 12 men with beards. Two of the men were her brothers. Their mother often asked them to shave their beards because, as Lebanese men, she worried they might be mistaken for terrorists. The series included men from different backgrounds. Cherine's photos make us think about how we judge people based on how they look.
In 2018, Cherine was invited to show her art in The National: New Australian Art. This big art show happens every two years in Sydney. Cherine showed a series called Apókryphos at Carriageworks. This Greek word means "secret" or "unknown." The photos were from her family's old pictures, taken in 1975. They showed a family funeral and what the Lebanese-Australian community looked like back then. Cherine added notes to each photo, explaining what was happening and how she felt. These notes are a very important part of the artwork. The funeral happened when Cherine was only two years old. The photos and her notes share both public sadness and private feelings of grief. The person who died is never seen, only the people mourning. Cherine even used special family names for her grandmother in her notes. After the show, the Art Gallery of New South Wales bought the series for their collection.
Awards and Special Opportunities
Cherine Fahd has received many awards and grants to help her create art:
- She received grants from the Australia Council for the Arts in 1999, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2014, 2016, and 2018.
- In 2003, she was given the Moya Dyring Studio award from the Art Gallery of New South Wales. This allowed her to live and work in a studio apartment in Paris for two months.
- In 2004, Cherine won the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Foundation for the Arts Photography Award.
- In 2005, she received the NSW Women and Arts fellowship from Arts NSW in New South Wales.
- In 2010, she won The National Photography Prize for her series Hiding – Self Portraits (2009–2010). This prize is given every two years by the MOMA Art Foundation, which supports the Murray Art Museum (MOMA) in Albury, Australia.
- In 2018, she was awarded the Asialink Creative Exchange residency. This allowed her to travel to Varanasi, India. While there, she studied how people's facial expressions show who they are.
- In 2019, she was chosen again for The National: New Australian Art exhibition.
- In 2019, she was an artist in residence at The Clothing Store at Carriageworks, a special place where artists can work.
Where Her Art Is Kept
Cherine Fahd's artworks are part of the collections at several important art museums:
