Eve MUNDY: Synthetic garden 7

2026 MAPh Photography Fair

Eve MUNDY
Synthetic garden 7 2025
pigment ink-jet print
unframed
30.0 x 42.0 cm
collection of the artist
courtesy of the artist and Caulfield Grammar School

This artwork was a finalist in our annual TOPshots competition and exhibition held in the MAPh Atrium Gallery, 11 March – 4 May 2026.

TOPshots is an annual celebration of emerging photo-media artists selected from a large pool of entries. 2026 marks the 18th anniversary of this award and exhibition, which showcases exceptional photographic work produced by students who have completed the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) subjects of Art Making and Exhibiting, Art Creative Practice and Media, as well as the International Baccalaureate (IB) subject of Visual Arts and the Vocational Education and Training (VET) subject of Visual Arts.

Artist statement

Synthetic garden explores the fragile boundary between the artificial and the natural. Featuring plastic butterflies among real flowers, the series invites viewers to question what is genuine and what is constructed. Photographed in both sterile light boxes and organic outdoor settings, the butterflies shift in meaning, exposed as objects in one context and deceptively lifelike in another. This tension mirrors humanity's urge to replicate and aestheticize nature, often reducing it to ornament. Through layered film photography, the contrast of color and darkness evokes memory, dream, and the uneasy beauty found between authenticity and artifice.