Tracey Moffatt has reached the heights of the artistic world but still remembers her most embarrassing job.
A new exhibition showcasing some of Australia's leading artists includes a dozen photographic prints of Moffatt as a waitress, a hair washer, a car driver without a car licence, a meat packer and a canteen worker.
"The canteen is so embarrassing," she told AAP.
"I was 24 and too old to be doing this sort of work, and I remember seeing out in the restaurant area, someone I went to school with and they already were a cub reporter.
"I remember rushing to the kitchen going 'Can I please do the dishes?' I don't want to be out there because I didn't want them to see me.
"They'd already had careers and I have no money.
"These are memories I like to forget - although, I am a Scorpio so I hold a grudge."
Now among Australia's most successful artists, Moffatt's works are held in the collections of the Tate, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and the National Gallery of Australia.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia exhibition 'Artists in Focus' features Moffatt's candy-coloured First Jobs (2008) as well a 2001 collection of silkscreen prints, Fourth.
Fourth is not visually exciting - the colours are muted save for the athlete in focus finishing fourth.
"Coming fourth is more tragic than coming last because last has a kind of glamour to it," Moffatt said.
"I knew this work would not be dramatic but I didn't care at the time. I still don't care."
But the pictures speak to each other - Fourth says it's beautiful to try and First Jobs says sometimes it's hard to try.
"I like to think that the images still hold," Moffatt said.
"I mean, I look 20 years later and think, 'No I could have changed that' but I kept it."
Then there is Artist (2000) playing in a dark room - clippings of movie characters destroying their art.
"It's taken off VHS tapes so the thing is it's illegal - happy to say this, I don't care," she said.
Moffatt also destroys her own work, simply because it feels good.
The rolling Artists in Focus exhibition features artworks rarely seen, collection favourites and recent acquisitions from artists including Moffatt, Joan Brassil, Kevin Gilbert and Simryn Gill.
Its first iteration opened on Friday and continues until March 10.
