The practice of Tina FiveAsh Ph.D spans more than three decades. A master of visual storytelling and conjuring illusion, FiveAsh is known for her powerful, cinematic still images and animated lenticular works that transform fiction into otherworldly realism.
FiveAsh is the recipient of multiple awards including the Blake Art prize (Finalist 2022, 2016), Olive Cotton Award (Highly Commended 2017, Winner People’s Choice 2013), National Photographic Portrait Prize (Finalist 2016), and the Josephine Ulrick & Win Schubert Photography Award (Finalist 2016, Highly commended 2007). She has exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally including at the 5th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art in Greece (a collaboration with artist Deborah Kelly). FiveAsh’s previous international exhibitions include: the 13th Pingyao International Photography Festival in China in 2013; Terra Nullius: Contemporary Art from Australia and Die Ideale Ausstellung [Kunstfest Weimar] in Germany in 2009. Additionally, FiveAsh’s work has appeared throughout the world on billboards, illuminated public advertising spaces, film, television and book and magazine covers.
In 2021, Tina was awarded a PhD from The Australian National University, Research School of Humanities and the Arts, Majoring in Visual Arts. Investigating intersections between art, science, and spirituality, Tina’s research engaged with experimental photographic approaches to the visual representation of death and imagined conceptions of an afterlife, based on scientific studies into near-death experience. An offshoot of this research was the ambitious undertaking of an online socially-engaged research project titled: The Death Letter Project. Exploring contemporary perspectives of death in Australia, the project invited fifty diverse Australians to handwrite a letter responding to: “what is death; and what happens when we die?”. The fascinating content of the letters, combined with striking photographic portraits of each contributor, form the focus of a website: www.deathletterprojects.com, which has received international attention and recognition for its unique approach to helping people contemplate death, whether it’s their own or their loved ones.
Tina’s work is held in the Australian Artbank Collection, The Art Gallery of Ballarat, Whitford Fine Art Gallery (London) and several private collections around the world.