Ones to Watch: Fernanda Pedroso

Creating striking conceptual images, Canberra-based photographer Fernanda Pedroso has been on a steep upward trajectory since embarking on a new artistic path at age 40. Pedroso left her home country of Brazil in 2020 to pursue love on the other side of the world, and at the same time transitioned from a 20-year career in advertising to photography. Currently pursuing a Diploma of Photography, the artist often harnesses studio lighting, plus elements including special make-up and elaborate costume, within atmospheric imagined scenarios. Pedroso’s work has already garnered international recognition in prizes including The Monochrome Awards, the Australian Photography Awards, and AsiaPacific Awards. She presented work in the group exhibition Terra (un)Becoming at Canberra’s Huw Davies Gallery last year, and was a finalist in the Canberra Contemporary Photographic Prize 2024. Most excitingly, Pedroso recently took out Overall Winner in Australasia’s Top Emerging Photographers Awards 2024.

Above: Fernanda Pedroso, Earthly, 2024. Print on Hahnemühle PhotoRag, 100 x 66.53cm.

COURTESY: THE ARTIST

More ones to watch from Recent issues

Ones to Watch: Holly Field 

Art Edit has selected Holly Field as an outstanding artist to have on your radar.Following a twenty-year nursing career, emerging artist Holly Field began her creative journey in her mid-thirties. A self-taught ceramic artist, she initially sought to incorporate painting to diversify her ceramic designs. However, she soon uncovered a passion for capturing the essence […]

Ones to Watch: Kate Belvedere

Art Edit has selected Kate Belvedere as an outstanding artist to have on your radar. “My work is an attempt to grapple at what it is to be human in an ever-changing cosmos,” says early-career artist Kate Belvedere. Residing in North-East Victoria, Belvedere graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Victorian College of the […]

Ones to Watch: Samantha Haničar 

Art Edit has selected Samantha Haničar as an outstanding artist to have on your radar. Trained in Fine Arts & Design at Newcastle Art School, Australian-Croatian artist Samantha Haničar’s practice encompasses drawing and sculpture. Brutalist architecture, Spomeniks (WWII memorials built in the former Yugoslavia), and the concrete socialist housing found in central and Eastern Europe […]

Ones to Watch: Simone Darcy

Art Edit has selected Simone Darcy as an outstanding artist to have on your radar. Born in Bedgerabong on Wiradjuri land in rural NSW, Simone Darcy is an early-career artist based in lutruwita/Tasmania. Holding a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours, her distinct practice employs cameraless image-making and darkroom processes in inventive ways. Using performance […]

Ones to Watch: Zeina Kara Ali

Art Edit has selected Zeina Kara Ali as an outstanding artist to have on your radar. “I have a deep affinity with beauty,” confesses Sydney-based artist Zeina Kara Ali, who was born and raised in Lebanon. First trained in Biology, her supreme powers of observation translate to sensitively rendered landscape and still-life works brimming with […]

Ones to Watch: Jorge Mariño Brito

Art Edit has selected Jorge Mariño Brito as an outstanding artist to have on your radar. Cuban-born artist Jorge Mariño Brito reflects on his immigrant journey and channels these experiences into art. Now based in Brisbane, his work encompasses contemporary papermaking, painting, and printmaking, probing issues of gender, sexuality, and otherness. Through a process of […]