Miriam Charlie joins N.Smith Gallery

A proud Garrwa/Yanyuwa woman, Miriam Charlie has lived her entire life in Borroloola, 1,000km southeast of Darwin. Armed with a polaroid camera, Miriam documents her surroundings, revealing the reality of community life and her Country in a form traversing documentary and art photography.

The intimacy of Miriam’s photos reframes the experience of life in a remote community, through a lens of compassion, dignity and respect. This low-fi technology removes the need for bulky equipment and editing, allowing the artist to retain complete agency over her projects. Each polaroid is a unique object – not to be replicated and entirely original, inscribed with Miriam’s own handwritten notes.

N.Smith Gallery, which opened its doors in 2021, continues to grow a stable of cutting-edge practitioners, with Miriam joining an already impressive contingent of notable Indigenous artists.

Miriam was included in Tarnanthi 2019, PHOTO 2021 International Festival of Photography, and exhibited a solo presentation of work at the Centre for Contemporary Photography in 2020.

Miriam Charlie’s first solo exhibition at N.Smith Gallery is scheduled late 2022.