Petrina Hicks - Snakes and Mirrors

Petrina Hicks: Snakes and Mirrors explores animal consciousness and the ways humans seek to understand the experiences of other living beings. Drawing on mythology, fables and art history, Hicks creates large-scale photographs that blur the boundaries between humans and animals, often pairing female figures with animals to explore identity, connection and perception.

Inspired in part by Rainer Maria Rilke's Eighth Elegy, the exhibition considers how animals may experience the world differently from humans. While humans perceive time as a sequence of past, present and future, Rilke suggests animals exist within a unified and immediate experience of the world.

Through striking, dreamlike imagery, Hicks challenges human-centred perspectives and emphasises the interconnectedness of humans and animals. Serpents, birds, monkeys and human figures appear together in carefully composed scenes that evoke stillness, mystery and a sense of shared existence.

Petrina Hicks: Snakes and Mirrors is a Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh) touring exhibition. Curator: Anouska Phizacklea, MAPh Director.