BIO
D-MO is a multidisciplinary visual storyteller who transforms the complexities of identity, migration, and memory into poetic acts of presence across photography, pigment, and cut paper. Her practice fuses personal history, material innovation, and global resonance.
Born of Polish heritage and grounded in the Australian landscape, D-MO’s life and work are shaped by the tension of duality: she is a twin, a mother, a migrant—an artist whose identity is both mirrored and individuated. Her work explores this layered terrain, moving fluidly between photography, pigment-based painting, and papercut, as she investigates questions of memory, migration, and the psychology of belonging.
Over the past decade, D-MO has built an internationally recognised career as a photographer. Her portraits—intimate, dignified, and emotionally exact—have been exhibited at institutions including the National Portrait Gallery in London, the United Nations Headquarters in New York, and the Museum of Australian Photography. Yet her practice resists confinement to any single medium or context.
A transformative residency at BUNDANON marked a pivotal shift—from documentation to invocation. There, she began producing her own pigments from native plants and ancient rocks—a deeply intentional, tactile return to land and origin. From this process, DONIA ROSA emerged. Not an alter ego, but an evolved identity: the intuitive, elemental extension of the documentarian. Where D-MO observes, Donia Rosa remembers. Together, they form a unified practice that moves across disciplines, time, and material with poetic rigor.
Her work is held in major public and private collections, including the National Library of Australia, the State Library of New South Wales, and the Sydney Jewish Museum. In 2021, she was awarded the prestigious Olive Cotton Award for photographic portraiture.
D-MO has found solace and inspiration in Australia since 2004.
EDUCATION: LIFE
RESIDENCIES
2024
Bundanon Artist Residency, NSW, Australia
EXHIBITIONS
2024
Aukland Festival of Photography , The Lonka Project, Auckland, New Zealand
Small Works Art Prize, At The Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
23/24 Finalist of the Taylor Wessing Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London, United Kingdom
2023
Prize Winner of the Hahnemuhle Summer Salon at the Centre For Contemporary Photography, Melbourne Australia
Head On Exhibition , The Lonka Project :: Bondi Beach Promenade, Sydney, Australia
Finalist of The Bowness Photography Prize 2023, Museum of Australian Photography, Melbourne, Australia
19th Julia Margaret Cameron Award Exhibition , FotoNostrum Gallery, Barcelona, Spain
Collectors’ Edition #9 :: Group Exhibition, Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, NSW, Australia
Finalist :: Blue Mountains Portraits 2023 :: Group Exhibition, Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, NSW, Australia
2022
Finalist :: Head On Portrait Festival 2022 :: Bondi Pavilion, NSW, Australia
Shutter - Hub Yearbook 2022 :: Online Group Exhibition, United Kingdom
Collectors’ Edition #8 :: Group Exhibition, Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, NSW, Australia
Finalist :: Blue Mountains Portraits 2022 :: Group Exhibition, Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, NSW, Australia
2021
Winner of the Olive Cotton Award 2021, Tweed Regional Gallery, NSW, Australia
Collectors’ Edition #7 :: Group Exhibition, Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, NSW, Australia
Finalist :: Blue Mountains Portraits 2021 :: Group Exhibition, Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, NSW, Australia
2020
The Lonka Project :: Group Exhibition, United Nations Headquarters, NYC, USA
The Lonka Project :: Group Exhibition, Virtual Screening, Visa Pour L’Image 2020, Perpignan, France
Out of The Fire: Resilience in the Face of Natural Disaster :: Group Exhibition, Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, NSW, Australia
2019
Semi Finalist in Head On Portrait Prize :: Festival Hub, Paddington Town Hall, Sydney, Australia
2018
Jewish Lifecycle:: Group Exhibition, The White Stork Synagogue, Wrocław, Poland.
2017-2018
Who I Am :: Solo Exhibition, Sydney Jewish Museum, Sydney, Australia
2016
Celebration : Jewish Community Photographs :: Solo Exhibition , The State Library of NSW, Sydney, Australia
2015
Day of Jewish Culture and Heritage :: Group Exhibition, Newtown Synagogue , Sydney, Australia
2014
The Art of Football :: Group Exhibition, MCA, The Rocks, Sydney, Australia
Inside Out :: Solo Exhibition, Natural Museum, Cieplice, Poland
Swallow and Destroy :: Solo Exhibition, Head ON, Tate Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2013
You will never become someone - You simple are :: Solo Exhibition, Asymmetry Festival, Polish Theatre, Wrocław, Poland
AWARDS
Prize Winner of the Hahnemuhle Summer Salon 2023 at the Centre For Contemporary Photography, Melbourne Australia
Winner of the Olive Cotton Award 2021, Murwillumbah, Australia
NATIONAL COLLECTIONS
Tweed Regional Gallery, Murwillumbah, NSW
National Library of Australia (NGA), Canberra, ACT
State Library of NSW , Sydney , NSW
State Library of South Australia , Adelaide, SA
The Sydney Jewish Museum, Sydney, NSW
BOOKS
The Lonka Project, 2024
"Tense Feelings" , 2018