Project 11 Collection

Artist Statement

There is something about being eleven.

I have always believed that eleven might be one of the most extraordinary ages of our lives. It is a brief space between two worlds — old enough to have developed a strong sense of self, imagination and independence, yet still young enough to daydream, play and make-believe before the expectations and self-consciousness of adolescence begin to take hold.

Project 11 grew from my desire to photograph children at around this age and preserve that fleeting moment between the innocence of childhood and everything that comes next.

The series is entirely grounded in my own photographic practice. There is no stock photography or generative AI within these works. Every photographic element appearing in the finished images was photographed by me.

Much of the construction began physically, long before I opened Adobe Photoshop.

The children were photographed against a plain white background, requiring me to anticipate the environments they would eventually inhabit. Their lighting, pose, perspective and expression were carefully considered so that these separately photographed subjects could later exist naturally within the worlds I was creating.

Props and elements were sourced or physically constructed specifically for the photographs. The swimming starting blocks, for example, were created from old blue tubs and metal poles, transforming ordinary materials into the structures I imagined for the finished scenes. The vintage swimming flags were physical props I discovered at a prop store in Williamstown and photographed as part of the production.

Everything began with something physically in front of my camera.

From there, the individual photographs were painstakingly brought together in Adobe Photoshop. Children, props and environmental elements were carefully masked, layered, blended and refined through detailed work with light, colour, texture, perspective and scale.

Photoshop was not a substitute for the photography. It was an extension of it.

Drawing inspiration from the visual language of vintage swimwear advertising, I developed a restrained palette of pastels, subtle textures and delicately balanced backgrounds. I wanted the finished works to possess a nostalgic, almost print-like quality rather than an overtly contemporary digital appearance.

That sense of timelessness was important to me.

I wanted to make photographs that were difficult to place within a particular year — images that carried the emotional familiarity of something remembered without simply reproducing the past.

The children themselves remain central to that feeling. There is a slight disconnection in their expressions: thoughtful, contemplative and often looking towards something beyond the frame. Added white brush strokes interrupt portions of the photographic surface, further blurring the visual boundary between photography, illustration and memory.

Presented as large-scale works at approximately one metre high, the portraits give these otherwise quiet moments an unexpected physical presence.

Project 11 also represents something fundamental about my approach to photography. For me, creating an image has never been limited to pressing the shutter. It encompasses concept development, art direction, prop sourcing and construction, lighting, portraiture, composition, photographic capture and meticulous post-production.

The finished photograph is the culmination of all of those decisions.

In 2018, two works from the collection, Bridget* and *Cooper, were selected as semi-finalists in the Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize. The recognition was particularly meaningful for a body of work so completely grounded in portrait photography, photographic construction and craft.

Ultimately, Project 11 is about photography's ability to preserve something that cannot be preserved in life.

The children will grow older. Their bodies will change. Their understanding of themselves and the world around them will change. The freedom to daydream without questioning it may become harder to hold onto.

But within these photographs, they remain eleven.

Suspended for a moment between childhood and everything that comes next.

SHOP THE PROJECT 11 COLLECTION HERE

Download the complete Lisa Saad 2026 Collection Catalogue to see the full series.

All artworks by Lisa Saad are produced as limited-edition fine-art photographic prints and framed canvas prints. Each work is professionally printed using archival-quality giclée printing processes with archival pigment inks on premium fine art paper or museum-grade canvas substrates to ensure exceptional longevity, colour stability and presentation quality.

All edition works are individually numbered and accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity. Edition details are noted on the artwork and/or accompanying documentation.

Lisa Saad’s photographic digital art practice combines original photography and imagery from her extensive photographic archive with appropriately licensed source material, digitally created elements and, where relevant, selected emerging technologies. Adobe Photoshop remains the primary environment in which these elements are extensively manipulated, reconstructed, composited and refined to create the final artworks.