Lot 84

Australian Centre of Photography, Sydney (label verso)
Private collection, Melbourne

Photographica Australis, Australian Centre for Photography touring exhibition, Sydney; National Gallery of Thailand, Bangkok; Singapore Art Museum, Singapore; Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei; Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka, 2003 - 2004 (label verso)

Comprising:
Acupuncture Cow
Acupuncture Foot
Anatomical Horse
Anatomical Pig
Acupuncture Horse
Anatomical Dog
Medicinal Ginseng Root
Medicinal Seahorse

Working together since the late 1980s, Rose Farrell and George Parkin have developed a highly considered photographic practice built around staged scenes. Their works often draw on art history and the visual language of science and medicine, bringing together figures, props and constructed settings with a quiet precision. There is a tension in their images between something composed and controlled, and something slightly offbeat, where systems of knowledge feel both familiar and uncertain.

'A Thousand Golden Remedies' 2000 is one of their more focused series, made up of eight photographs that look at ideas of healing and the body. Using imagery drawn from acupuncture, anatomy and traditional remedies, the works read almost like a set of specimens or illustrations. Animals, objects and fragments are presented with a kind of clarity that feels scientific at first, but on closer look becomes more ambiguous, gently questioning how these systems of care are understood and trusted.

© Courtesy of the Artist and Arc One Gallery, 2026