Mad Dame

Mad Dame is known to many as a provocative artist with a beautiful and bizarre approach to alternative portrait photography. With 23 years of experience in photographing everyday people and portraying them in diverse creative contexts, for most of which she prepares all elements including make-up and set, sometimes with a team on hand and support from local designers.

 

She has since won awards for her fine art such as the Entrepreneur Motivative Series, a collection of photographic work exhibited at Smith Street Lofts, Collingwood, and also won two Silver Awards by International Loupe Awards for Medium Format Prize. In 2012 Mad Dame launched a Artbook Printed series called DAMED MAGAZINE in 2013 to inspire others in her wake.

 

Through the lens she began exploring self-portraits, capturing an anarchy of emotion and alternative beauty and from 2001 teaching herself how to skilfully develop film in a dark room. Her first foray into photography as a major medium began in 2003 as a teenage exchange student in Denmark. Challenged by the language barrier in a strange and conservative culture, she felt isolated and disconnected. But it was this tumultuous venture through teenage angst that became a catalyst for Mad Dame's photographic creativity. She discovered she was naturally adept from concept to finish and the images began to fill an emotional void. It wasn't long before Mad Dame realised her photography was the perfect way to overcome the language barrier as a means to communicate and share her story. The response from her Danish peers was overwhelming and confidence grew in the place of fear.