Valerie Sparks
Valerie Sparks is a photomedia artist whose practice is driven by her interest in the history and aesthetics of immersive environments. Her visual dialogue with frescos, glass houses, stereoscopic photographs and French scenic wallpapers from the 1800s inspire the creation of floor-ceiling dioramas where the boundary between reality, history and fantasy is often blurred. Sparks also creates bespoke wallpaper for private residences and commercial projects. The exploration of historical collections and archives is a core element of her practice, including those at the Vienna and La Rochelle Natural History Museums, the Musueè du Papier Peint in Rixheim, the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Whitworth Gallery of Art and the Royal Institute of British Architects. Her work has expanded from photography to encompass laser scanning, CT scanning and medical imaging software, using these technologies to investigate different ways of seeing, recording and understanding the world. She brings together diverse systems of knowledge and representation to explore the intersections between photography, radiography, science, geography and visual technologies. Sparks has been the recipient of a number of awards including the Australia Council London Residency, the French Embassy Cite Des Arts Studio in Paris, the City of Port Phillip Rupert Bunny Award, Australia Council New Work funding, and Arts Victoria International Program funding. She was awarded the OMNIA art award in 2021, the St Kevin’s Art Show prize for work on paper in 2018, the William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize in 2016, and in 2025 received an honourable mention in the Hadley's Art Prize. Her work is in collections including the National Gallery of Australia, The National Gallery of Victoria and Artbank.
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