Forced Into Images

Destiny was one of two Australian artists invited to the current Yokohama Triennale—the first major Japanese international art expo—from which she has just returned.

The photographs in this show form a narrative told in vignettes about a girl from birth to adulthood. It was partly informed by news reports earlier this year about violence against indigenous women in Australia. The show's title borrows from an Alice Walker poem "...forced into images, doing hard time for all of us."

Her staged photographs are ambiguous, acerbic, ironic, naughty, touching and painterly. They use friends and family, dolls, and other toys and objects found round her house to confront and up-end stereotypes, and comment—sometimes savagely, on contemporary Australian life.

Destiny's work has appeared in many major local and international exhibitions including the Yokohama Triennale (2001), Das Lied von der Erde (Kassel, 2001), Perspecta (1999 and 1993), Melbourne International Biennial (1999), the second Asia-Pacific Triennial (1996), the first Johannesburg Biennale (1995), and the fifth Havana Biennial (1994). She has also appeared in many other groups and solo shows.

Her work is held in most major public collections in Australia, and by private collectors.

Destiny was born in 1957 in Maryborough Queensland, but was raised and lives in Melbourne. She has a BA from Melbourne University majoring in politics and a Diploma of Education from La Trobe University, and is a teacher by trade. She has taught in state secondary and community schools, tutored at Melbourne University and been a staff trainer in the Commonwealth public service. She is also a performer, and broadcaster, and has written for television.