Vanity by Murray Fredericks was made at Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre in remote South Australia and debuted in 2017 as an extension of his longer Salt (2003–2010) cycle, examining light, space, and the human relation to a nearly featureless salt landscape.
The series takes its title from the language of self-regard, yet its central gesture is to redirect attention away from the individual and outward toward sky, horizon, and atmosphere. In that sense, the work examines how human-centered ways of seeing shape contemporary life, while also proposing a quieter encounter with a world that exceeds human measure.
Mirrors are used to redirect the viewer’s gaze from self-image toward sky, horizon, and atmosphere. In the earlier 2017 works this often takes the form of a single large mirror, while the later Array sub-series (2018) extends the idea through multiple mirrored elements arranged in more systematic formations. Color is integral: blues, pale pinks, whites, and muted oranges shift across dawn, dusk, and night images, while the lake’s shallow surface doubles these atmospheric changes. The result is a measured play between stillness and motion, flatness and depth, with the mirror producing a second horizon that gently disrupts spatial certainty.
Fredericks made more than twenty journeys to the lake’s center, often camping for weeks to wait for precise weather and light. Working in extreme conditions, he used large mirrors, digital medium-format systems, and, in some cases, long exposures that hold the night sky and its reflections in sharp, suspended detail. Despite the project’s unfamiliar appearance, its dislocations are produced in camera through staging, reflection, and timing rather than digital construction.
Exhibited as large digital pigment prints on cotton rag, Vanity was shown at Hamiltons Gallery, London, and ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne, in 2017, followed by Robert Mann Gallery, New York, in 2018, where it was received as a conceptually inflected extension of Fredericks’ landscape practice.
