The Percivals 2026

About the Artwork

I photographed Ed Koumans in January 2026, seated in his exhibition at Mulgrave Gallery, Cairns, positioned in front of an earlier large black-and-white photograph of himself taken in his studio in 2013. Both images share the same props: a table, a chair, and studio artefacts.

The photograph brings two moments into conversation. Thirteen years apart, the setting appears almost unchanged, yet the passage of time is quietly present in the body, the posture, and the atmosphere: what seems the same is not.

There is a melancholy in this meeting of selves, not nostalgia, but an awareness of continuity, persistence, and the slow accumulation of years, an artistic life lived over time, to friendship, and to the persistence of practice, where change occurs not through rupture, but through duration.

About the Artist

Michael Marzik is a Swiss-born photographer and arts professional. On migrating to Australia many years ago, he chose to establish his life and work in Cairns. His practice explores place, material history, and the quiet intersections between nature and human intervention. Working across landscape, documentary, and conceptual photography, his work is grounded in close observation and long-term engagement with specific environments. Michael’s images often reveal subtle traces of time, labour, and ecological change, inviting reflection rather than spectacle.

Through a restrained and attentive visual language, Michael’s work foregrounds photography as a tool for inquiry, memory, and sustained looking. Michael has exhibited in group and solo exhibitions since 1996, his work is held in private and public collections, and he has contributed photographic work to gallery, curatorial, and publication contexts.