SYDNEY.- The National Art School Gallery this month unveils a major solo exhibition of works by leading photo-based Australian artist Rosemary Laing, spanning more than a decade of the artist’s practice.

Rosemary Laing: effort+rush is presented free to the public from 20 August until 15 October, showcasing 31 photographic works by Laing including new and never-before exhibited pieces.

The previously unseen series titled effort and rush (2015) will be presented alongside works from highly regarded series including one dozen unnatural disasters in the Australian landscape (2003),a dozen useless actions for grieving blondes (2009) and leak (2010).

The exhibition explores the artist’s on-going engagement with historical and social landscapes and her interrogation of national and individual identity in contemporary culture. Laing is known for creating works relating to culturally or historically significant locations across Australia. Her interventions with the landscape are undertaken in situ and at times the artist choreographs and then photographs performance work, engaging with the politics of place and contemporary culture.

A free gallery floor talk with exhibition curator Judith Blackall is scheduled as part of the National Art School’s annual open day held on Saturday 29 August. The talk will take place at 2.00pm in the NAS Gallery and will provide insight into the artist’s process and inspirations.

Rosemary Laing is a photo-based artist. Her projects are most often created in relation to cultural and/or historically resonant locations throughout Australia. With interventions undertaken in situ or through the use of choreographed performance work, she engages with the politics of place and contemporary culture. The Unquiet Landscapes of Rosemary Laing, a major survey of her work was held at Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney in 2005 and travelled to Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik, Odense, Denmark in 2006. Transportation, an exhibition of Rosemary Laing’s earlier series is showing at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until 20 September. Curated by Judy Annear, Senior Curator of Photography, the exhibition explores the artist's sustained interest in the nature of place and landscape, and the relationship between technology, labour, time and speed.