August 13th, 2026Artists of the Central Highlands – Caitlin Marks

Caitlin Marks was raised by her maternal grandparents from an early age, following the unexpected death of her mother. Her grandmother was a craftsperson and her grandfather an author and journalist, her mother’s brother a musician. Caitlin says creativity has always pulsed in her background and through her veins, and she continues to find large parts of herself and her story within all these pursuits. Photography makes the creative quadrella complete. She chatted with Donna Kelly.

“I became entranced by photography at an early age. I discovered a vintage strut-folding camera on my grandparents’ bookshelf as a young child and was utterly fascinated by it. How could a box hold an image and then teleport it to a page to keep forever? Certain photographs of my mother also transfixed me. In their own magical way, photos helped my heart keep my mother alive.
“Although I never met him, there was also a direct family connection to photography – my father’s father was a photojournalist. Both my grandfathers together created a published children’s book with their respective artistic trades, and that is how my mother and father had met. Travelling with my grandmother through Europe, America and Asia as an eight- and 13-year-old, I may have hijacked her Kodak 110 Instamatic on more than one occasion. There was definitely always an allure to the way photography made me feel, what it allowed me to explore and hold.
“In my early 20s I completed Honours in History at the University of Melbourne, focusing on its interplay with memory and the understanding that every story – and picture – contains more than two perspectives.
“This was also when I met my father for the first time. Before we even sat down to speak, he passed me an old orange AGFA envelope containing photographs of my mother that I’d never seen before – photographs that he had taken during their time together, capturing moments and emotions that I wasn’t aware had existed.
“It felt like it was not only my father I was meeting for the first time. And you’ll never guess what my father did – and still does – for a living. That’s when my attraction to photography as a medium started to make even more sense to me.
“In my late 20s and early 30s during my six-year stint in the UK I travelled extensively to Europe, the Americas and Asia with the vintage Nikon my father gave me as my constant companion. I found a combination of enchantment, joy and safety behind a camera.
“Photography allows me to experience and engage with the world creatively by enabling me to seek out connection, story and meaning. It brings me wonder by revealing the unexpected. It allows me to capture the surprising and intimate, and provides the interesting buffer of viewing from a slight safe distance through a lens when I am overwhelmed by my surroundings.
“Concepts around dying and death, loss and grief and the precarity and preciousness of life came to me from an early age, alongside the joy of creativity and story that my grandparents (and later my father) bestowed. I believe this has led me to always seek out ways to engage with the spectrum of colour, light and shade that life throws with gratitude, to glean insights to myself, and others, through creative connection.
“In turn my photography particularly draws me to ideas around illumination, colour, reflection and shadow. I relish catching a moment of intimacy, different and perhaps surprising perspectives and hidden meaning through the varied – sometimes overlapping – subjects of landscape, architecture, nature and we weird, wonderful and messy humans.
“During a time of immense change, I made the serendipitous leap with my young family to the Macedon Ranges some eight years ago, and feel privileged to continue exploring my artistry, history and present through the Ranges and surrounds. I find myself looking upward at the sky. Exploring nature and public Indigenous sites. Experiencing the profound sense of time past and present, and connection to Earth and loved ones, it all evokes.
“I discover unique creative inspiration at every turn in this beauteous region, and fulfilment and gratitude in the artistic expression and emotion that my camera allows me to channel – to be in the moment, create new memories, remember old stories, and keep them alive. And to share them with you, the beholder, for you to wonder and discover your very own stories within.”
The Old Auction House in Kyneton is run by business owners and partners Rhain and Jo DiPilla. They are passionate about showcasing emerging and mid-career artists from regional Victoria.
Caitlin features in their new Contours exhibition alongside local artists – Arthur Vaughan, Caroline Brockhoff, Di Aitken, Itta Somaia, Margaret Morgan, Melinda Privitelli and Paul Melnyczuk, all with works which respond to the natural lines, ridges and forms that shape our landscapes.
The Contours exhibition runs until August 31.