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Drinking From The Eye is the first photobook by Australian artists Honey Long and Prue Stent, and the third in the PHOTO Editions series, co-published by Photo Australia and Perimeter Editions.

Commissioned by Photo Australia for PHOTO 2024 International Festival of Photography, Melbourne, Drinking From The Eye takes the form of an abstracted visual diary, presenting a combination of constructed photographs and detail shots that emphasise the artists’ attention to form, texture and material.

Honey Long and Prue Stent have worked together for the past ten years, developing a practice that traverses photography, moving image, performance, installation and sculpture. Their art is grounded in experimentation between bodies, materials and environments, and creates a space for the animate versus inanimate – the human and other – to interweave. ‘We see the body as a microcosm and are constantly exploring environments to find moments, processes or formations that reflect a feeling or speak to the body in some way,’ the artists explain. ‘We try to find points of connection where the outside world and our inner worlds overlap.’

The body is ever-present throughout Drinking From The Eye, whether literally through a performative interaction, or appearing figuratively in the leaking eye of a rock pool, the plush lips of a sea creature or the tingling tentacles of a sea anemone. ‘From the micro worlds we explore – gardens, rock pools, ponds etc. – hybrid creatures and uncanny moments emerge which speak to desire, fantasy and the urge to see ourselves reflected in the natural world,’ say Long and Stent.

Often referencing historical representations of the female subject, Long and Stent distort and fragment their bodies, creating creaturely hybrids in a constant state of becoming and flux. Dreamlike, fluid, saccharine, gritty and fleshy, they challenge and captivate audiences with powerful imagery that is both subversive and surreal.

Honey Long and Prue Stent have been working together since 2010 and are currently based in Melbourne. Solo exhibitions have taken place at ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne (2018), PhotoEspana, Madrid (2018) and Nicola Von Senger, Zurich (2018). Notable group shows they have been in include Eyes on Australia, Pingyao International Photography Festival, China (2019), In Her Words, Horsham Regional Gallery, Melbourne (2019), Future Feminine, Fahey/ Klein Gallery, Los Angeles (2018), London Photo, The Female Lens: 9 Contemporary photographers, Huxley Parlour Gallery (2018), The Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award Finalist Exhibition, Gold Coast (2018), REVERIE REVELRY: Fashion Through Photography, Ballarat Foto Biennale, Melbourne (2017) and Trash Cans For Hearts and People Have No Soul, Fotofestiwal Łódź, Poland (2017). They are currently represented by ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne.