Photographic series exhibited at Ballarat International Foto Biennale (Her Majesty’s Theatre, Long Room). A portrait-based body of work exploring change and renewal through a kintsugi-like gold trace and double exposures as a metaphor for healing.

Trace began in conversations with a close friend who, while living in Ballarat, learned she had breast cancer. The months that followed reshaped her life. We spoke about fear, anger, acceptance and gratitude. Feelings do not line up neatly; they arrive, ease and return. This series is not about illness. It is about the felt space those days opened, the noticing and the embodiment.

What matters here is not diagnosis but the texture of living through it: the pauses, the courage to remain with what is. Watching up close, I found it eye-opening that the nearness of illness can sometimes sharpen a sense of aliveness. When the future feels uncertain, presence becomes a practice, not a plan. Much of the noise falls away; breath and small moments come forward.

From those conversations came a portrait session, an exploration of light, skin and emotion. I wanted the prints to sit close and unadorned so the body could be met as a place of presence and return. A trace of gold where change becomes part of the form, holding a different kind of beauty.

These images honour my friend’s generosity in sharing her process with raw honesty. I hope they offer a place to pause, where grief and acceptance can share space, and where gratitude can surface even on difficult days.