Dean’s beginnings were in the ephemeral yet intimate portrayal of her immediate youth documenting her relationships living on the cultural fringe and her transient lifestyle.
Later her documentary work would delve deeper into subcultures, social rituals and portraiture which continue to inform on-going themes in her evolving photographic practice.
Today Dean is fast forging a reputation as one of Australian’s prominent photo-media artists with her defining series ‘Ritualism’, a study of the interplay of ritual and the human condition.
‘The Bride’, from that series, won first prize in ‘Sydney Life: Art and About’ and was runner up for the Moran Contemporary Photography Prize the same year.
Dean’s art practice has seen her awarded artist residencies with
Taronga Zoo, Sydney in 2010,
Montsalvat artists colony in Victoria in 2010 and in the remote gold-mining town of
Hill End, NSW which takes its place in Australia’s art history as arguably one of the nation’s more significant contributions to post-war art in 2005, 2008 and 2010. .
Since 2001 Dean has worked as a photographer for The Sydney Morning Herald, before which she studied photography at the College of Fine Arts and the University of Western Sydney.
Dean is represented by
Charles Hewitt Gallery and has work regularly exhibited in leading Australian galleries.
She joined Oculi in 2002
