Arrayah is a conceptual photographic artist whose work explores themes of memory, neurodivergence, the female experience and otherness. She works with altered/expanded photography, archival imagery and mixed media.

Born in the UK and raised in Australia, Arrayah works as a freelance artist and image consultant and has taught photography at various educational institutions within Australia specialising in concept development, colour management and fine art printing. 

Arrayah’s work has been featured in Australian and International publications, art prizes and awards – including Lensculture, Head On Photo Awards, PhotoLucida Critical Mass, and Australian Photography Awards. Her work has also been exhibited in Australia, USA, China, Europe and UK and is held in private and public collections both within Australia and internationally.

Arrayah has produced two monographs that were both selected as finalists for the Australian & NZ photobook awards 2024

Image Consulting: concept development, exhibition curation, image sequencing, submissions curation, and more.

NAARM/MELBOURNE,AUSTRALIA
Unceded WURRUNDJERI LAND

The Rhonda Wilson Award, 2025
David Campany on my winning series:
‘All Roads Lead to Salvation’

“The forces that shape our lives today are largely invisible, to do with what goes on inside computers, and what goes on inside our bodies and minds. This is a profound challenge for all visual artists, not least for those working with photography (a medium we so often tempt into simplified truths). Arrayah Loynd’s sustained and restlessly creative work can be understood as series of gestures – speculative and experimental – to make physical pain and mental struggle at least thinkable through the visual. Collage and layering have long been used by artists to break with a limiting visual order, but it is Loynd’s careful and thoughtful attention to what gets collaged and layered that really matters. Each considered element brings its own rich set of allusions and poetic inferences. Meaning is not so much signalled in her work as conjured like constellations of shifting emphasis.  Can we really know pain and difficulty? Is empathy ever enough? 

Lensculture Art Photography Awards, 2023
‘Come and Find Me’, Jurors Pick
Lensculture Art Photography Awards Juror CRISTA DIX,
Executive Director Griffin Museum, United States
View here

“Come and Find Me by Arrayah Loynd is a multilayered visual narrative, mesmerizing, destabilizing and filled with questions I can’t find answers to. The best part of seeing work that engages me is for me to question my own clarity of who I am. Loynd’s work isn’t something to look away from, it is something to find yourself in. The collage work, the repetitions of living a dream over and over to what end, pattern changes, all leading to the edge of madness. Or clarity. To me that keeps me coming back to this work, finding something new to explore each time I see it.”

2026

WYNDHAM ART PRIZE 2026
Finalist, Australia

2025

RHONDA WILDON AWARD
Winner (All Roads Lead to Salvation)
Awarded by David Campany, Debra Klomp Ching, Darren Ching
NY, USA
FRESH PHOTO AWARD, KLOMPCHING GALLERY
Finalist, NY, USA
HEAD ON PHOTO AWARDS
Exposure Award – Finalist,
Landscape Award – Semi finalist
LENSCULTURE NEW VISIONS AWARD
Winner, Art Category (All Roads Lead to Salvation)
NILLUMBIK PRIZE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART
Finalist, Australia

2024

HEAD ON PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS
Semi Finalist, Exposure Category
BBA PHOTOGRAPHY PRIZE
Longlisted (And then you were gone)
PHOTOLUCIDA CRITICAL MASS
Finalist (And then you were gone)
SEE-ZEEN PORTRAIT PRIZE
Finalist
AUSTRALIAN & NZ PHOTOBOOK AWARDS
Altered Landscapes – Finalist/Highly commended in Pre Press Digital category
Come and Find Me – Finalist in Open Photobook category
LENSCULTURE ART PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS
2nd place series winner (And then you were gone)

2023

LENSCULTURE EMERGING TALENT AWARDS
Winner, Emerging Talent (Pain always finds the surface)
HEAD ON AWARDS
Semi finalist, Landscape & Portrait Awards
AUSTRALIAN PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS
Shortlisted, Landscape category
PHOTOLUCIDA CRITICAL MASS
Finalist (Pain always finds the surface)
WYNDHAM ART PRIZE
Winner (Australia)
MULLINS CONCEPTUAL PHOTOGRAPHY PRIZE
Finalist and highly commended (Australia)
NILLUMBIK PRIZE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART
Finalist (Australia)
LENSCULTURE ART PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS
Finalist and special distinction/jurors pick (Come and find me)

2022

AUSTRALIAN PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS
Winner, experimental category
HEAD ON AWARDS
Finalist, Lanscape category
PHOTOLUCIDA CRITICAL MASS
Finalist and recipient of the Michael Reichmann Project Grant (Come and find me)
AUSTRALIAN & NEW ZEALND PHOTOBOOK AWARDS
Winner, pre press open category (Come and find me, Vol.1)

2021

NILLUMBIK PRIZE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART
Finalist and winner of peoples choice award (Australia)

2026

WYNDHAM CULTURAL CENTRE
Wyndham Art Prize, Australia

2025

LENSCULTURE EXHIBITION
New Visions exhibition, Leica Gallery, NY, USA
Showcasing winning work from series, All Roads Lead to Salvation
LENSCULTURE EXHIBITION
Photo London – Group exhibition, Somerset House, London, UK
Showcasing work from series, All Roads Lead to Salvation
HEAD ON PHOTO FESTIVAL
Digital Open Program, Australia (And Then You Were Gone), Sydney, Australia
BALLARAT INTERNATIONAL FOTO BIENNALE
Co-occurrence – outdoor group exhibition (come and find me), Ballarat, Australia
NILLUMBIK PRIZE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART
Finalist exhibition, Montsalvat Gallery, Australia

2024

14TH ANNUAL PHOTOBOOK EXHIBITION
Griffin Museum of Photography, MA, USA (Come and Find Me)
NOVA 24 PHOTO & FILM FESTIVAL
Group exhibition, Promenade Gallery, Detroit MI, USA (Come & Find Me & Pain Always Finds the Surface Vol.1)
Solo Outdoor exhibition, Detroit MI, USA (And Then You Were Gone)
LENSCULTURE EXHIBITION
Group exhibition, Caelun Gallery, New York
Showcasing work from: And Then You Were Gone (Winner, Art Photography Awards 2024) Pain Always Finds The Surface (Winner, Emerging Talent Awards 2023)
EXCESS
Group exhibition, Analgoue Now/Fotogalerie Friedrichshain, Berlin (Come and find me)
SHUTTER HUB OPEN
Group exhibition, Cambridge University, UK (Pain always finds the surface)

2023

HEAD ON PHOTO FESTIVAL
Solo feature exhibition (Come and find me)
ARTDOC PHOTOGRAPHY MAGAZINE
Through My Lens, online exhibition (And then you were gone)
WYNDHAM ART PRIZE
Finalist exhibition, Melbourne (Australia)
REVISITING THE FAMILY ALBUM: STORIES THAT BIND US
The Centre for Fine Art Photography, online group exhibition
MULLINS CONCEPTUAL PHOTOGRAPHY PRIZE
Finalist exhibition, Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre (Australia)
NILLUMBIK PRIZE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART
Finalist exhibition, Melbourne (Australia)

2022

AUSTRALIAN PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS
Winners/Finalist exhibition, Melbourne
HEAD ON PHOTO FESTIVAL
Finalist exhibition, Sydney
‘COME AND FIND ME’
Solo exhibition (Australia)
ARTDOC PHOTOGRAPHY MAGAZINE
Image and Identity exhibition

2021
LENSCRATCH
Still life, online Finalist exhibition
‘MORE OR LESS (IN)COMPLETE’
Solo exhibition (Australia)
NILLUMBIK PRIZE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART
Finalist exhibition, Melbourne (Australia)

2026

FOTOFEST
Recipient – Meeting Place Portfolio Review scholarship
Houston, TX, USA

2025

HEAD ON PHOTO FESTIVAL
Digital open program, Australia (And Then You Were Gone)
BALLARAT FOTO BIENNALE
Open Walls program, Australia (Come and Find Me)

2024

HEAD ON PHOTO FESTIVAL
Head On Photo Awards exhibition, Australia
NOVA 24 PHOTO & FILM FESTIVAL
Group exhibition, Promenade Gallery
Solo Outdoor exhibition (And Then You Were Gone) Hazel Park Arts Park, Detroit MI, USA
ATHENS PHOTO FESTIVAL
Shortlisted project (And then you were gone), GREECE
PHOTO 2024
Photobook weekend/ book launch and Photobook awards, AUSTRALIA

2023

HEAD ON PHOTO FESTIVAL
Feature solo exhibitor, AUSTRALIA
THE 23RD PINGYAO INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL
HeadOn touring exhibition, CHINA

2022

FORMAT23 PHOTO FESTIVAL
Longlisted project (UK)

2025

AAP – ALL ABOUT PHOTO
Feature on winning work for the Rhonda Wilson Award
ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, WIP MAGAZINE
Feature article – All Roads Lead to Salvation series & essay
THE GUARDIAN
Feature article, LensCulture New Visions Award Winners, 2025

2024

PHOTOGRAPAHER’S COMPANION MAGAZINE (CHINA)
Feature article – Special edition, Photography as Therapy
LENSCULTURE
Feature essay by Magali Duzant: And Then You Were Gone
SPECTACULUM MAGAZINE
Feature article: And Then You Were Gone
LOMOGRAPHY MAGAZINE; :::::::
Feature article covering entire catalogue of work
ARTDOC PHOTOGRAPHY MAGAZINE, ISSUE #6::::::
Feature article: ‘And Then You Were Gone’ series

2023

SEE:ZEEN MAGAZINE ISSUE #1
Feature article: A Visual Dialogue
FRAMES MAGAZINE
The Female Gaze, article by Diana Nicholette Jeon (Pain always finds the surface)
LENSCRATCH
Feature interview (Come and Find Me)
AUSTRALIAN PHOTOGRAPHY MAGAZINE , JULY
Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize, 2023
THE GUARDIAN
Feature article, LensCulture Art Photography Awards 2023
SEE:ZEEN MAGAZINE ISSUE #7
Featured artist & interview (Come and find me)

2022

PHOTO-COLLECTIVE, 2022 APA ANNUAL
Top 20 Finalist imagery from the 2022 Australian Photography Awards
ARTDOC MAGAZINE,ISSUE #4
Featured artist (Come and find me)
ARTDOC MAGAZINE, ISSUE #4
Image and Identity (Come and find me)