Catherine Anne Flood Drinks Her Tea With Two Sugars Ed. 2 of 6

Luminaries Series - reimagining untold stories of women in Australian history
My Great, great grandmother was Catherine Anne Flood. What I know about her is what I've found on official records. Irish. Came to Australia on a ship called the Shooting Star (sounds romantic). Her occupation was listed as 'housekeeper' (I failed to inherit that skill). Married a German man, Wilhelm Dreschler. They lived in Sedgwick, raised a family. The things I'm longing to know are now buried in the past. What was she like? What did she like? Did she miss her home? How did she meet Wilhelm and come to marry him? In my deep longing to know the women from my past, I feel a sense of loss to have not uncovered anything anecdotal about her. And so I imagine her qualities and interests to foster a lineal connection. She must have been brave and adventurous. Or desperately fleeing poverty and famine. I imagine she loved tea and that's where I get it from. How strange her new life in a completely foreign and new (for Europeans) land must have been. What strength she must have had.

Photographed on Dja Dja Wurrung land.

FINE ART PHOTOGRAPH, 310gsm COTTON RAG
ARCHIVAL PRINTING AND FRAMING

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Lauren Starr is an Australian photo-media artist whose work explores women’s stories through history, folklore, fairytale, and the Australian landscape. Drawing on colonial histories, personal ancestry, and mythic archetypes, she creates narrative works that reimagine the past through a contemporary lens.

Working with staged photography, painterly textures, and digital compositing, Starr constructs richly layered images that sit between reality and myth. Her practice is particularly concerned with memory, inheritance, belonging, and the ways women’s lives become embedded within landscape.

Recent bodies of work have explored female narratives from the Victorian goldfields, acts of re-wilding and reclamation, and the enduring relationship between women, story, and place.

Starr is the recipient of the 2022 Bluethumb Art Prize (Photography Category and Grand Prize). Her work has been acquired by Parliament House Melbourne and Bendigo Art Gallery, and has been recognised through the Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize, Olive Cotton Award, Head On Photo Awards, and other national exhibitions.