Lisa Cramer
Consider the Lillies
Edition 1/3
16 x 20 inch
Printed on Hahnemühle Fine Art
$145 AUD
Includes GST & postage within Australia
Bio
"For there cannot be any real beauty without the indolic whiff of decay" - Sally Mann.
Lisa Jayne Cramer is an Australian artist based in Naarm (Melbourne). She lives her life the only way she knows how, expressing how she sees the world through her camera. It brings her peace, although it is hard won. Never maternal, never cooing over a baby doll or imagining herself holding her own child, yet always believing it was her right, and perhaps purpose, to become a mother - this day never came.
For as long as Cramer can remember, she has felt most at peace holding a camera. Drawn to analogue photography and self-portraiture, she found a way to express her world. After years of longing and several failed IVF attempts, at forty the dream collapsed and the road to acceptance began, realising her true purpose was to carry grief.
Her photographic practice is a personal enquiry into love and longing, grief and beauty. Using analogue film, collage and metaphorical imagery, such as flowers, roses, lilies, she explores themes of femininity, fertility and resilience. She has exhibited her work in Australia, Spain, UK and France, with publications in Fotonostrum's Julia Margaret Cameron Award, and Kamira Institute's "Eyes on the world".
Cramer is a member of the 2025 cohort of the Penumbra Foundation Long Term Photobook Project and is soon to self-publish her first, short-run edition photobook, FLOWER under ether.
Statement
“for there cannot be any real beauty without the indolic whiff of decay ...” ~Sally Mann
The lily represents life, death, fertility and decay. What more could one ask for, than for all of these. I consider this is given to most in the way of family, but not all experience this. My work questions identity, 'who am I, if not a mother?' and delves into darkness at times but offers hope in a new way of life. Alone in my sadness I have come to understand that my true purpose is to carry grief with a resilient hope that is found in love.
Flowers are metaphors for love and for my pain, a way to express tension. My story is about and from love. I aim for connection and to leave flowers on the table that express what we are here for, that I was here, and it was a life lived well and full of joy.
Image made with my Mamiya Rz67, in the late afternoon with available light.
