Art Of Travel – Artist Statement
Rebecca Tunks is an Australian-based photo artist who constructs intricate photomontages, meticulously reconstructing landscapes defined by human intervention into hyper-detailed visual narratives. Her practice involves careful observation and documentation of the ordinary yet emblematic details that subtly shape our surroundings. Through digital manipulation reminiscent of artists such as Andreas Gursky, she transforms commonplace elements like signs, architecture, and communities or local people into complex tableaux that invite exploration and contemplation.
Influenced by visual dialogues that interrogate contemporary civilisation, Tunks arranges photographic elements into layered compositions that capture both the diversity and interconnectedness of cultural identities across varied locations including India, Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Australia. Her work transforms everyday objects into significant cultural markers, revealing how seemingly mundane features can encapsulate complex global narratives of consumption, identity, and urbanisation. By doing so, she preserves ephemeral yet critical details of place and memory, highlighting the delicate tension between global uniformity and local distinctiveness.
Tunks’ compositions encourage viewers to pause, reflect, and deeply engage with their environments, highlighting the importance of attentiveness in an age marked by rapid change, digital overload, and homogenisation. Her work is a quiet yet powerful call to reconsider how we collectively shape and perceive the spaces we inhabit.
‘Money’ continues the Art of Travel concept of creating composites of impressions and objects that have been placed within a culture by the surrounding human inhabitants. They characterize the land, based on the humans branding of the landscape, creating the result of an implied culture that is unique from any other, through signs. Money is…
The beach is an iconic aspect of Australian identity, serving as a communal gathering space that transcends age, background, and lifestyle. Beach Bodies Girls and Beach Bodies Boys (2011) celebrates this sense of belonging by highlighting a multitude of people in various states of relaxation, play, and contemplation. The montage format, with its grid of…
Series of Art of Travel artworks from around Australia. Including Signs, Lamp Posts, Doors, and Windows.
Love is a language spoken through touch, through fleeting gestures that hold the weight of memory and meaning. In Show Me Love Series, I document these intimate exchanges at Sun Set Hill in Scarborough, WA, where couples, friends, and families gather to watch the sunset — a ritual of connection in a place imbued with…
In Flower Writings, Tunks examines the structured design of Kings Park Education Centre’s Everlasting Daisy (Rhodanthe chlorocephala ssp. rosea) flower beds. These native Australian blooms, though part of the natural landscape, have been intentionally arranged to construct a visually saturated and immersive display. By isolating and reconfiguring over 290 individual flowers into a dense, rhythmic field,…
Series of Art of Travel artworks from around India between 2008 and 2010. Including Signs, Rickshaws, Shop Boxes, Cars, Doors, and Windows.
Series of Art of Travel artworks from around China. Additional works currently in development.
Series of Art of Travel artworks from around Dubai. Additional works currently in development.
Series of Art of Travel artworks from around London, UK. Additional works currently in development.
Series of Art of Travel artworks from around Hong Kong. Including Signs, Doors, Gates, Windows and Shop Boxes.