The art of holograms

21 October 2005

Dr Paula Dawson from the College of Fine Arts (COFA) gave a visual presentation and public lecture on life-size holographic images and the human presence on Wednesday night, as part of the UNSW Alumni Association's Speaker Series.

Dr Dawson is internationally recognised as a leader in holographic art and is renowned for having made some of the world's largest holograms of complex real objects.

Holograms are created with lasers and allow light and shadow to be manipulated in ways that aren't possible in other visual media. Dr Dawson has been working with holograms for more than 20 years, ranging from small holograms such as the portrait she produced of choreographer Graeme Murphy (see picture above) to large gallery installations.

During her presentation Dr Dawson displayed her work Shadowy Figures, a hologram that involves illumination with lighting effects similar to those the Renaissance artists depicted or described in their own work.

Dr Dawson has held residencies at the Laboratoire de Physic et Optique Besancon, France, RMIT's applied physics department in Melbourne, the Holocentre New York and the Centre for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT, Cambridge. Her first major holographic work, There's No Place Like Home, 1980, is part of the collection of the National Gallery of Australia.

Dr Dawson was made a Research Fellow at UNSW after she received the prestigious Australia Artist Creative Fellowship in 1993. Her latest project, Luminous Presence, funded by a three-year ARC Discovery grant, looks at early mosaics and gilded aureoles.

Presented by the UNSW Alumni Association, the Speaker Series showcases internationally acclaimed research from across the University's faculties in a series of public lectures. The 2006 Series will commence in mid-February.