PHYSIS: Elemental Bodies
Lilli Waters at the Hellenic Museum
OPENS FRIDAY 13 NOVEMBER 2026
PHYSIS: Elemental Bodies brings together new and existing photographic works by Thai-Australian artist Lilli Waters, exploring the powerful connection between the female body, mythology and the natural world.
Photographed at Tidal River in Wilsons Promontory (Yiruk Wamoon), Waters' ethereal figures merge with tannin-darkened waters, ancient granite and shifting light, blurring the boundaries between body and landscape.
Inspired by Greek mythology and the concept of physis – nature as a living, ever-changing force – the exhibition reimagines the female body as resilient, elemental and inseparable from the earth.
At a time of ecological change, PHYSIS invites us to reconsider our place within nature, not as observers, but as part of its continuous transformation.
Exhibition open daily from Friday 13 November, included with Hellenic Museum general admission.
Featured artwork: 'The Crossing' by Lilli Waters
About Lilli Waters
Lilli Waters is a Thai-Australian contemporary photographic artist living and working on Wurundjeri Country, Australia. Since studying photography in 2002, Waters has exhibited internationally through institutions, art fairs and festivals across Australia, Italy, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Waters' photographs can be considered autobiographical landscapes that explore feminist ideologies inherited through her maternal lineage and the complex history of her identity as a Thai-Australian woman. Drawing from the visual language of Dutch still-life painting, her work is composed of carefully constructed symbolic environments: self-portraits submerged in the river near where she was born, fabrics drifting through water amongst waterlilies and nacre-covered shells, and female forms that embody strength and protection. Water recurs throughout her practice as a central motif, operating as a conduit for rebirth, transformation and renewal.
Through her depictions of women in landscape, Waters deconstructs historical perspectives and subverts the monolithic male gaze to re-contextualise what has been obscured within patriarchal structures.
Photo by Hilary Walker