B Dam Pictures

Spirits presents a series of intimate wildlife self-portraits. Recorded over five-years in the fragile landscape near the Murrumbidgee, the images show the area during severe drought, under threat from fire and in recovery after heavy rains.

These works were created with a motion-sensor camera positioned in a remnant sclerophyll forest, revealing the habits, pleasures and dangers of the locals’ lives. Spirits creates a story about the tenuous existence of native animals on this continent, and by extension, our own fragility.

B Dam Pictures is comprised of artists Anthony Sillavan and Stephanie Sheppard. They have exhibited separately and together since the late 1980s. Both have worked for significant periods in regional parts of NSW and have based their studios in the Monaro since 2005. Broadly, Sheppard’s perspective is based on the natural landscape and Sillavan is more influenced by urban and archaeological concerns.