Hayley Millar Baker (b. 1990) is a lens-based artist living and working in Melbourne, Australia. She is an Aboriginal Gunditjmara/Djabwurrung woman with mixed Anglo-Indian and Portuguese-Brazilian heritage. Hayley’s work centres on Indigenous feminine narratives of being, spirituality, and the psyche - prominent subjects in her personal and cultural identity and experiences. Working in black-and-white across photography, collage, video, and film, Hayley’s oblique storytelling methods encourage audiences to embrace her ever-unfolding narratives as non-linear or fixed – with their meanings and messages unravelling and evolving over time.
Hayley’s works have been extensively exhibited in major group and solo exhibitions. She has been commissioned to create significant works for Rising: Melbourne Festival, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, the National Gallery of Australia, PHOTO: International Festival of Photography, the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, and the International Ballarat Foto Biennale. Her works are held in significant national and international public institutional collections.
In 2021, Hayley presented her first early career survey, ‘There we were all in one place’ at UTS Gallery, curated by Stella McDonald. The exhibition brought together five pivotal bodies of work from Hayley’s early career created between 2016 and 2019 and toured throughout New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, and Victoria, Australia, in 2021-2022.‘There We Were All in One Place’ considered how photography and storytelling are used to re-author history by asserting the authority of memory and experience across generations. Grounded in historical archive research and guided by a nonlinear form of storytelling that sees past, present and future as an unbroken continuum, Hayley affirms Aboriginal experience and culture within the Australian imaginary to form a complex image narrative of place, family, identity, and survival. The exhibition’s accompanying catalogue was awarded ‘Highly Commended’ in the AAANZ Arts Writing and Publishing Awards, recognising the best in art writing and research across Australia and New Zealand.
Hayley has been recognised through numerous prestigious awards and prizes. She has been the recipient of the John and Margaret Baker Memorial Fellowship for the National Photography Prize, the Darebin Art Prize, and the Special Commendation Award for The Churchie National Emerging Art Prize. Her work has been selected for several highly esteemed national art prizes, including the Ramsay Art Prize, Bowness Photography Prize, John Fries Award, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award, and international prizes, Arte Laguna Prize (Italy), Sovereign Asian Art Prize (Hong Kong), and Vantage Point Sharjah 9 (United Arab Emirates).
Hayley has been awarded several notable residencies, including the DESA Artist-in-residence in Ubud, Bali, the Gertrude Contemporary studio residency, the Artist-in-residence at Monash University in Prato, Italy, the Photography Fellowship at the State Library of Victoria, and the Artist Residency at The Substation.
Hayley has a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) from RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, a Master of Fine Art from RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, and a Master of Teaching from the University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
Hayley is represented by Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne, Australia, and Cassandra Bird, Sydney, Australia.