Tayla Nuss-Soeharto - 2016 AIPP Australian Student of the Year

I am so incredibly humbled and honoured to have been awarded the Student photographer of the year! I never would have even dreamed about this! The support I’ve received from friends, family, teachers and colleagues has been so overwhelming!

These images are from a larger series called ‘Pop Crack Bang’, which concerned itself with the simple objective of creating physical tension through an image. The series sought to move beyond basic observation and perception to something more visceral, by stimulating specific responses in the viewer. ‘Pop Crack Bang’ achieves this by creating a fictional world where time is inverted, to play with the notion of construction, deconstruction, and examine stability, instability, and most importantly order and chaos. By creating images of objects paralysed in time, the series comments on photography’s ability to freeze and calm the perceived aftermath of an event. These images, hopefully, provoke the viewer to make assumptions about cause and effect, as well as action and reaction. These themes also attach themselves to wider metaphors for life, existence, as well as my own personal experiences of everyday stress and tension. The images purposefully place everyday objects safely away from consequences, in a world where the normal vernacular and pragmatic use of objects are not mandatory, and where the natural law of gravity doesn't exist.

About Tayla

Tayla Nuss-Soeharto (1996) is a Melbourne based photographer who combines colour and humour to create playful still lifes. Nuss-Soeharto’s interests lie mainly in still life and product photography, but are not limited to these. She has a fascination with minimalism and abstracting elements of reality, which results in uncomplicated, elegant compositions and quirky elements.

Her work has featured in various group exhibitions, including *Fishbowl Utopia*, Donnington Ct, Highton (2016); *Kapow*, Ruffian
Gallery, Fitzroy (2015); *Beach Game,* Whiteaways Gallery, Penang (2015); *Glimpses*, Testing Grounds, Melbourne (2014).