Rate My Professor Michael Gray

Dr Michael Gray is a Lecturer in Photography in the School of Design and the Built Environment within the Faculty of Humanities at Curtin University, where he has been employed since 2014. For over thirty years, he has studied, practiced, researched, and taught photography and visual communication. His academic qualifications include a Doctor of Philosophy from Edith Cowan University in 2016, a Bachelor of Creative Industries (Honours, First Class) in 2009, a Bachelor of Communications (Photomedia) in 2002 also from Edith Cowan University, and a Diploma of Applied Science in Photography from Perth Central TAFE in 1992. Gray's practice-led research and creative works explore dominant Western narratives intersecting Australian and personal concerns, including applied machismo, uncanny suburbia, preconscious vision, the nature-culture divide, and the experience of the partially naturalised migrant. He employs experimental techniques ranging from devolved analogue processes to high-end digital and AI technologies to construct alternate narratives on post-colonialism, visual phenomena, identity, and modernist histories.

In 2021, Dr Gray received the Curtin University Research and Engagement Award for Early Career Researcher of the Year in the Creative Practice category. His documented creative outputs at Curtin include 'View from the Window' (2014), 'Of Spears and Pruning Hooks II' (2014), and participation in 'Beautiful South'. He has achieved recognition as a finalist in numerous national and international awards, such as the Prompted Peculiar International AI Prize (2025), Iris Award (2025, 2019), HeadOn Photo Awards (2022, 2021), Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Award (2018, 2012), Fremantle Print Award (2018), Olive Cotton Portrait Award (2017), Bowness Photography Prize (2016, 2014), CLIP Contemporary Landscapes in Photography Award winner (2016), City of Joondalup Invitational Art Prize (2015, 2013), City of Swan Art Award best print (2011), and Kaunas Photo Festival Grand Prix finalist (2008). Gray has exhibited nationally and internationally since 2003 and supervises postgraduate research in fine art and design.