Polly Borland

Creative fields / disciplines

Photography

A successful portrait photographer before moving to the UK from Australia in 1989, Polly Borland's practice was first established by major portrait commissions and extraordinary reportage. Since 2000 the photographer's art projects and exhibitions have principally recorded documentary and collaborative subjects.

Borland shoots regularly for numerous UK and US publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Independent and Dazed and Confused. In 1994 she won the prestigious John Kobal Photographic Portrait Award. Her work has appeared in numerous exhibitions, and a selection of photographs from a previous body or work, The Babies was exhibited at the South Bank's Meltdown Festival in 1999, curated that year by Nick Cave. The National Portrait Gallery in London, and in Canberra, have acquired a number of Borland's photographs for their collections, and in 2000 both galleries exhibited Australians, a major solo show of her work. Powerhouse published her first book The Babies in 2001 with an essay by the late Susan Sontag. In that same year Borland was one of eight photographers selected to photograph Queen Elizabeth II for the Golden Jubilee.