Filip Konikowski is a Melbourne-based photographer, director, producer and emerging filmmaker working across portraiture, advertising, food, fashion, documentary, fine art and cinema.
Born in Dortmund, Germany to Polish immigrant parents before migrating to Australia at a young age, Konikowski grew up with an outsider’s eye. That sense of looking in from the edge became central to his work. His images are observant, cinematic and deeply human, drawn to character, atmosphere and the quiet tension of everyday life.
Art was present from the beginning. His father, Ryszard Konikowski, is an internationally regarded artist whose discipline, visual intelligence and uncompromising eye shaped Filip’s creative instincts from an early age. It was Ryszard who first handed him a Canon 400D, setting in motion a practice that would grow from street-level observation into exhibitions, books, campaigns and film.
That father-son artistic relationship has remained central to Konikowski’s story. The two have co-exhibited twice, once in Poland and once in Australia, bringing their practices into direct conversation across generations, countries and mediums. For Filip, exhibiting alongside the person who first introduced him to image-making marked a significant full-circle moment: a private creative inheritance made public.
Over the past two decades, Konikowski has become a distinctive figure in Melbourne’s creative landscape, photographing artists, musicians, designers, chefs, performers, cultural figures and the city itself. His work has appeared in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Vault and the National Gallery of Victoria’s 200 Years of Australian Fashion.
His commercial practice spans portraiture, advertising, food, hospitality, lifestyle, motion and brand storytelling, but his approach is closer to cinema than conventional campaign imagery. He is interested in mood, rhythm, human behaviour and the details that make a frame feel alive.
In 2025, Konikowski was named International Food Photographer of the Year, receiving first prize for work that reflects his ability to photograph food not just as an object, but as culture, ritual, labour, appetite and human connection.
Alongside his commercial work, Konikowski has built a substantial body of personal projects. His long-running series Vintage Car Porn began as an obsession with classic and unusual cars found across Melbourne and abroad. Without a car of his own, he moved through the city slowly, noticing what others missed. The project became a study of nostalgia, design, subculture, masculinity, memory and urban character.
Vintage Car Porn has been exhibited in Melbourne, self-published as a limited-edition book and recognised with an Honourable Mention at the International Photography Awards. Its 2024 book launch and exhibition at Revolver Lane drew more than 200 attendees, cementing the project as both a photographic work and a cultural event.
Exhibitions have become an important part of Konikowski’s practice. His work has appeared across Melbourne in solo and group shows, including presentations connected to Vintage Car Porn at B-Side Gallery, Revolver Lane and Young Hearts. Internationally, he exhibited as part of Art Icon in Paris, showing alongside major cultural figures including David Lynch, Pussy Riot, Christopher Makos and Zhang Wei.
That exhibition marked a significant moment in Konikowski’s trajectory, placing his work in conversation with artists known for cinema, portraiture, provocation, performance and political charge. It also pointed toward the direction his practice has naturally been moving: from still images into cinema.
Konikowski is now expanding into filmmaking, writing, directing and producing his own narrative work. This move is not a departure from photography, but an extension of it. For years, his stills have carried the mood of scenes from unwritten films. His filmmaking now gives those instincts room to breathe: character, silence, tension, humour, memory, family, fear, masculinity and the strange charge of suburban life.
As a filmmaker, he is interested in stories that feel both familiar and uneasy. The walk home. The family myth. The overheard argument. The face before it breaks. The ordinary moment that slowly reveals something darker, funnier or more human beneath it.
Across stills, motion, books, exhibitions and film, Konikowski’s work is united by one instinct: to notice what others pass by. His images are polished but not sterile, cinematic but not forced, intimate but never small.
He continues to work from Melbourne across commercial campaigns, personal projects, exhibitions and narrative film, building a body of work that sits between art and commerce, memory and performance, beauty and unease.
Exhibitions.
2025 Best of Show - IPA - Int’l Photography Award - Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece
2025 Speculative Futures - Polish Art Foundation - Victorian Artist Society Gallery, East Melbourne - Group Show
2025 Photo festival Arles; Art-icon Exhibition "Faces" in Arles, France
2024 ART ICON Exhibition - Paris, France - Group Show
2024 Vintage Car Porn & Friends - Young Hearts, Melbourne - Solo
2024 Freedom Show - Polish Art Foundation - Victorian Artist Society Gallery, East Melbourne - Group Show
2024 Vintage Car Porn Book Launch & Exhibition - Revolver Lane, Prahran - Solo
2023 Head On Photo Festival Exhibitor - Sydney - 15 Years of Portraits
2022 IPA (Int’l Photography Award) - Budapest, Hungary - Group Show
2022 PX3 - Paris, France - Group Show
2022 Konikowski & Son - Compendium Gallery, Armadale - Father (Ryszard Konikowski) & Son Show
2021 IPA (Int’l Photography Award) - Budapest, Hungary - Group Show
2021 Faces - Polish Art Foundation - Victorian Artist Society Gallery, East Melbourne - Group Show
2021 Vintage Car Porn - Bside Gallery, Fitzroy - Solo Show
2020 Vibes - Polish Art Foundation - Victorian Artist Society Gallery, East Melbourne - Group Show
2018 Trouble Makers - VS Gallery, Richmond - Group show
2016 Made in Melbourne - BWA Walbrzych - Zamek Ksiaz - Poland - Father (Ryszard Konikowski) & Son Show
2015 Head On Photo Festival Exhibitor - Gentleman's Club - Gaffa Gallery, Sydney - Solo Show
2014 Taboo Exhibition - Polish Art Foundation - Victorian Artist Society Gallery, East Melbourne - Group Show
2010 Vision Exhibition - Toorak - Solo Show
2008 30x30 Exhibit - Steps Gallery, Carlton - Group Show
Books.
2024 Vintage Car Porn - Edition One - Self Published
2017 Faces by Filip Konikowski - Celebrating Sunrise Cambodias 25th Anniversary. - Self Published
Accolades.
2025 Head On Photo Festival - Portrait Finalist
2025 IPA - Int’l Photography Award - Food Photographer of the Year
2025 IPA - Int’l Photography Award - Honourable Mention, James Brett 2025 (Portrait)
2025 IPA - Int’l Photography Award - Honourable Mention, Calvin Capp 2024 (Advertising - Music)
2025 World Food Photography Awards - Shortlisted
2024 IPA - Int’l Photography Award - Honourable Mention, VCP BOOK (Book Category)
2024 IPA - Int’l Photography Award - Honourable Mention, Brian Fantana 2023 (Advertising - Music)
2024 reFocus - Portrait Winner
2023 Head On Photo Festival - Portrait Finalist
2023 Head On Photo Festival - Landscape Finalist
2022 Head On Photo Festival - Portrait Finalist
2022 PX3 Paris Awards 2nd Place for BiRaPolar, featuring Henry Skillz (Advertising - Music)
2021 IPA - Int’l Photography Award 2nd Place for BiRaPolar, featuring Henry Skillz (Advertising - Music)
2018 Moscow Foto Awards Silver Award for Moccasin Kings (Advertising - Fashion)
2017 IPA - Int'l Photography Award Honourable Mention for Brutalist life (Special Effects)
2017 IPA - Int'l Photography Awards Honourable Mention for Moccasin Kings (Advertising - Fashion)
2017 PX3 Paris Awards Honourable Mention for Moccasin Kings (Fashion/Advertising)
2016 IPA - Int'l Photography Awards Honourable Mention (Portrait)
2016 Moscow Foto Awards Honourable Mention (Portrait & Landscape)
2015 Moscow Foto Awards Winner (Portrait, Architecture, Special Effects, Advertising & Landscapes)
2015 PX3 Paris Awards Honourable Mention for Gentleman's Club Series (Portrait/Advertising)
2015 IPA - Int'l Photography Awards Winner (Portrait & Special Effects)
2014 Moscow Foto Awards Winner (Portrait)
2013 International Loupe Awards Bronze Winner (Portrait)
2013 Moscow Foto Awards Winner (Portrait)
2012 International Loupe Awards Bronze Winner (Portrait)
