Mahalia Murphy brought her Parramatta NRLW Community Award from 2024, Yasmin Meakes was photographed with her three NRLW Premiership rings on one finger, plus a letter from her mum and dad, while Tiana Penitani Gray was captured in both her Tonga and Jillaroos jerseys.
These three leading NRLW players are among the 12 – one from each club – photographed in a variety of poses for an exhibition entitled ‘The Captains’, which will run at Sydney’s prestigious Museum of Contemporary Art at Circular Quay until August 10.
The brainchild of Harvey Norman CEO Katie Page the black-and-white artwork was launched to both coincide and celebrate the 20th anniversary of the ‘Women in League Round’, which Page initiated in 2007.
The artist, and St George Illawarra supporter, Cherine Fahd had asked each individual player to bring objects connected to the game that they cherished when they arrived at her studio.
The portraits are striking and powerful and that’s exactly what photographer Fahd wanted.
“They are superheroes,” she said. “There is a poise and a grace about them. And they trusted me and were open enough to make art with me.”
Bulldogs skipper Tayla Preston said there was some unknowns of how the exhibition might turn out.
“But once I saw the images I could see it was possible to merge the two worlds of athlete and art,” she said.
“It made me realise we can have a bigger impact than we realise.”
The exhibition is expected to be seen by upwards of 100,000 visitors as it is strategically placed in the main foyer of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney.
Penitani Gray said all the players felt extremely privileged to be part of the exhibition.
“I thought it would be really hard to depict that softness of us as women because we run and bash each other up each weekend, but this project does it,” she said.
“It shows us as warrior women but it also shows us as women.”
The idea to commission the work came after Page remembered seeing black-and-white portraits of male rugby league players about 15 years ago in western Sydney.
“They were true warriors and it stayed with me – one of the most powerful things I’d ever seen,” Page said.
“I wanted the world to know these women are warriors. They put their bodies on the line every week and they are teachers, uni graduates, and mothers.
“This is Harvey Norman’s way of saying ‘thank you’ to women for the past 20 years.”
It was also a farewell gesture for NRL CEO Andrew Abdo – his last public engagement for the organisation he’s spent 13 years with – before heading to Tennis Australia’s top job.
“We don’t spend enough time asking where we’ve come from and where we’re going to,” Abdo said.
The Female Athlete Project: Tiana Penitani Gray
“My 13 years in the game and I’ve seen where the women’s game is going.
“For me, women are driving the game. It’s one thing to talk about the future but another thing to be actually doing it.
“Women are making the game better.”
When the WIL Round started in 2007 was less than 15,000 registered female players, Abdo said, but that figure was now well over 50,000.
“Can you imagine where we’ll be in 50 years?”
