A Living, Breathing Gallery
Collaborating with collection curator Charlotte Day and architecture practice Studio McQualter, a selection of artworks from the MECCA Collection has been incorporated into the design of our MECCA Bourke Street store.
Gemma Smith, Expanse 2024
acrylic on canvas
Abstract painting is one of the most widely recognised and celebrated modes of contemporary art, with a history that brings its own sense of authority and convention. Gemma Smith approaches this potentially heavy legacy through experimentation—playing with forms, movement and painterly methods to work more freely and fluidly, between background, foreground and the important space between. Expanse was Smith’s largest painting to date at the time it was made. The work reflects her confident embrace of colour and her ongoing interest in creating dynamic, sensual compositions.
-CD
Image courtesy the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf.
Gemma Smith, Expanse 2024
acrylic on canvas
Abstract painting is one of the most widely recognised and celebrated modes of contemporary art, with a history that brings its own sense of authority and convention. Gemma Smith approaches this potentially heavy legacy through experimentation—playing with forms, movement and painterly methods to work more freely and fluidly, between background, foreground and the important space between. Expanse was Smith’s largest painting to date at the time it was made. The work reflects her confident embrace of colour and her ongoing interest in creating dynamic, sensual compositions.
-CD
Image courtesy the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf.
Image courtesy the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne
Jenny Watson, Girl Dancing to Record Player 2022
acrylic and Japanese pigment on rabbit skin glue primed Belgian linen
Since rising to prominence in the 1980s, Jenny Watson has been known for her vivid, expressionistic paintings, many of which incorporate text and collage. At a time when autobiographical content was less common in contemporary art, Watson foregrounded her own life in her work, referencing childhood experiences in suburbia, a deep affection for animals—particularly horses—and later, her involvement in Melbourne’s punk rock scene.
In Girl Dancing to Record Player, a young woman in a red dress, dances with her eyes closed, absorbed in the music. Its joy and intensity transform her surroundings: suburbia dissolves into a richly coloured, sensory space of immersion and potential transformation.
- JH + CD
Image courtesy the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne
Jenny Watson, Girl Dancing to Record Player 2022
acrylic and Japanese pigment on rabbit skin glue primed Belgian linen
Since rising to prominence in the 1980s, Jenny Watson has been known for her vivid, expressionistic paintings, many of which incorporate text and collage. At a time when autobiographical content was less common in contemporary art, Watson foregrounded her own life in her work, referencing childhood experiences in suburbia, a deep affection for animals—particularly horses—and later, her involvement in Melbourne’s punk rock scene.
In Girl Dancing to Record Player, a young woman in a red dress, dances with her eyes closed, absorbed in the music. Its joy and intensity transform her surroundings: suburbia dissolves into a richly coloured, sensory space of immersion and potential transformation.
- JH + CD
Diena Georgetti, The Communal Self 2024
glass mosaic tiles
Diena Georgetti was invited to create a signature artwork for MECCA Bourke Street store, working closely with architects Studio McQualter. Here, art and architecture merge and as the artist elaborates: “In this composition, a frieze of female figures wraps around a column, sitting above a geometric foundation. Through their dynamic postures, the figures are a celebration of self-awareness, agency and connection to bodily experience. I hope they can also suggest a deeply sensed understanding of the complexity of womanhood, providing an appreciation of the female experience across time and cultures.”
– CD
Image courtesy the artist and Neon Parc, Melbourne
Diena Georgetti, The Communal Self 2024
glass mosaic tiles
Diena Georgetti was invited to create a signature artwork for MECCA Bourke Street store, working closely with architects Studio McQualter. Here, art and architecture merge and as the artist elaborates: “In this composition, a frieze of female figures wraps around a column, sitting above a geometric foundation. Through their dynamic postures, the figures are a celebration of self-awareness, agency and connection to bodily experience. I hope they can also suggest a deeply sensed understanding of the complexity of womanhood, providing an appreciation of the female experience across time and cultures.”
– CD
Image courtesy the artist and Neon Parc, Melbourne
Image courtesy the artist and Olsen Gallery, Sydney
Christina Zimpel, Blue Turtleneck (Mega) 2025
acrylic on canvas
Christina Zimpel’s distinct colourful, graphic style of portraiture is inspired by an eclectic mix of references including classical Greek and Roman coiffure (hair arrangements), 1950s pin-up girl calendars, as well as her memories of the 1960s and ’70s colourways and print designs and love of the rock band The Fauves. Both commissioned for MECCA Bourke Street, Blue Turtleneck (Mega) and Special Occasion (Mega) are the largest paintings Zimpel has created to date, and were physically challenging to produce, with the artist spending much of her time up a ladder! She notes: “My choice of colours are riotous, but I enjoy that the subjects remain serene and dignified.”
– CD
Image courtesy the artist and Olsen Gallery, Sydney
Christina Zimpel, Blue Turtleneck (Mega) 2025
acrylic on canvas
Christina Zimpel’s distinct colourful, graphic style of portraiture is inspired by an eclectic mix of references including classical Greek and Roman coiffure (hair arrangements), 1950s pin-up girl calendars, as well as her memories of the 1960s and ’70s colourways and print designs and love of the rock band The Fauves. Both commissioned for MECCA Bourke Street, Blue Turtleneck (Mega) and Special Occasion (Mega) are the largest paintings Zimpel has created to date, and were physically challenging to produce, with the artist spending much of her time up a ladder! She notes: “My choice of colours are riotous, but I enjoy that the subjects remain serene and dignified.”
– CD
Rudi Williams, 2013, White Room: ‘Mirror, mirror II (2008-2009)’, Rosslynd Piggott ‘Murmur’ exhibition, The Johnston Collection, East Melbourne 2024
hand-printed chromogenic print and ink on Dibond
These photographs by Rudi Williams emerge from her long standing collaboration with fellow artist Rosslynd Piggott. They document Piggott’s slumped mirror works installed in different settings, including a historic Melbourne house museum. By capturing the mirrors and their distorted reflections, Williams records not only the physical presence of Piggott’s works but also their affect—suggesting less tangible qualities such as atmosphere, memory, and the aura of artworks shaped by the places in which they are encountered.
- CD
Image courtesy the artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
Rudi Williams, 2013, White Room: ‘Mirror, mirror II (2008-2009)’, Rosslynd Piggott ‘Murmur’ exhibition, The Johnston Collection, East Melbourne 2024
hand-printed chromogenic print and ink on Dibond
These photographs by Rudi Williams emerge from her long standing collaboration with fellow artist Rosslynd Piggott. They document Piggott’s slumped mirror works installed in different settings, including a historic Melbourne house museum. By capturing the mirrors and their distorted reflections, Williams records not only the physical presence of Piggott’s works but also their affect—suggesting less tangible qualities such as atmosphere, memory, and the aura of artworks shaped by the places in which they are encountered.
- CD
Image courtesy the artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
Image courtesy the artist. Photo: Emanuele Tortora
Bethan Laura Wood, Grand Criss Cross Kite 2024
hand-blown Pyrex glass made in collaboration with artisan, Pietro Viero, brass, steel, stainless steel suspension and fittings, electrical components
Grand Criss Cross Kite is a continuation of Bethan Laura Wood’s ‘criss cross’ language developed with specialist Pyrex glass artisan, Pietro Viero. The influence for the dynamic floating hexagon chandelier commissioned for MECCA Bourke Street is described by Wood as; “it has travelled from the Aztec and Mayan layered temples of Mexico to Tokyo and its kite museum”, reflecting the designer’s wide ranging refences and inspiration. The long, clear pipes of Pyrex are suspended by wire cables and brass bracing to create an open column, while the ‘bloom’ of hand-blown, coloured Pyrex echoes the graphic eye from Koinobori (kite) streamers. Bethan Laura Wood was recipient of the 2023 MECCA x NGV Women in Design Commission. The five-year series is supported by MECCA through M-Power, which aims to champion and elevate women in art and design.
– CD
Image courtesy the artist. Photo: Emanuele Tortora
Bethan Laura Wood, Grand Criss Cross Kite 2024
hand-blown Pyrex glass made in collaboration with artisan, Pietro Viero, brass, steel, stainless steel suspension and fittings, electrical components
Grand Criss Cross Kite is a continuation of Bethan Laura Wood’s ‘criss cross’ language developed with specialist Pyrex glass artisan, Pietro Viero. The influence for the dynamic floating hexagon chandelier commissioned for MECCA Bourke Street is described by Wood as; “it has travelled from the Aztec and Mayan layered temples of Mexico to Tokyo and its kite museum”, reflecting the designer’s wide ranging refences and inspiration. The long, clear pipes of Pyrex are suspended by wire cables and brass bracing to create an open column, while the ‘bloom’ of hand-blown, coloured Pyrex echoes the graphic eye from Koinobori (kite) streamers. Bethan Laura Wood was recipient of the 2023 MECCA x NGV Women in Design Commission. The five-year series is supported by MECCA through M-Power, which aims to champion and elevate women in art and design.
– CD
Patricia Piccinini, Sensuous Gyre 2023
polyurethane, synthetic hair, steel, mechanism
Patricia Piccinini explores what it means to be human in a technological age. Employing materials as diverse as silicone and fibreglass, plastic and human hair, she creates fantastical sculptures that are as informed by surrealism, mythology and science as they are by art. Sensuous Gyre is one of her more minimal works: a suspended rotating sculpture that, with its long pink hair, suggests an uncanny being, doomed to spin without ever being revealed. The artist says: “My work aims to shift the way that people look at the world around them and question their assumptions about the relationships they have with the world.”1
– JH
Image courtesy the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
Patricia Piccinini, Sensuous Gyre 2023
polyurethane, synthetic hair, steel, mechanism
Patricia Piccinini explores what it means to be human in a technological age. Employing materials as diverse as silicone and fibreglass, plastic and human hair, she creates fantastical sculptures that are as informed by surrealism, mythology and science as they are by art. Sensuous Gyre is one of her more minimal works: a suspended rotating sculpture that, with its long pink hair, suggests an uncanny being, doomed to spin without ever being revealed. The artist says: “My work aims to shift the way that people look at the world around them and question their assumptions about the relationships they have with the world.”1
– JH
Image courtesy the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
Image courtesy the artist and Smith & Singer, Melbourne. Photo: Andrew Curtis
Sally Ross, Vali 2024
oil on board
Although best known as a landscape painter, Sally Ross has long been interested in portraiture – and has been an Archibald Prize finalist six times. Her distinctively flattened and patterned surfaces, interest in costume and coiffure and delicate use of colour and line emerged from influences as varied as Renaissance painting, modernism and police mug shots. She has described the act of painting subjects from life [and from art and cultural history] as filled with a “strange intimacy, awkwardness and thrill”.3
– JH
Image courtesy the artist and Smith & Singer, Melbourne. Photo: Andrew Curtis
Sally Ross, Vali 2024
oil on board
Although best known as a landscape painter, Sally Ross has long been interested in portraiture – and has been an Archibald Prize finalist six times. Her distinctively flattened and patterned surfaces, interest in costume and coiffure and delicate use of colour and line emerged from influences as varied as Renaissance painting, modernism and police mug shots. She has described the act of painting subjects from life [and from art and cultural history] as filled with a “strange intimacy, awkwardness and thrill”.3
– JH
Judith Wright, Second Thoughts II 2023
acrylic on Japanese paper
Judith Wright’s eclectic visual language emerged from her experience as a dancer with The Australian Ballet. In this work, the leg, shimmering in a white stocking, hovers en pointe over the silhouette of a large head – the embodiment, perhaps, of a sudden, or second, thought. Wright says, “All of my practice has a strong sense of theatricality, of oppositional forces, of light and dark, of shadow and memory and loss.” 2
–JH
Image courtesy the artist and Jan Manton Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane. Photo: Carl Warner
Judith Wright, Second Thoughts II 2023
acrylic on Japanese paper
Judith Wright’s eclectic visual language emerged from her experience as a dancer with The Australian Ballet. In this work, the leg, shimmering in a white stocking, hovers en pointe over the silhouette of a large head – the embodiment, perhaps, of a sudden, or second, thought. Wright says, “All of my practice has a strong sense of theatricality, of oppositional forces, of light and dark, of shadow and memory and loss.” 2
–JH
Image courtesy the artist and Jan Manton Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane. Photo: Carl Warner
Image courtesy the artist and MARS, Melbourne
Atong Atem, Red Dust Sticks to You 2022
Ilford smooth pearl print
Atong Atem combines references to both her South Sudanese heritage and her life in Australia. Influenced by eminent Malian artists Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keïta, who popularised African studio portrait photography in the ’50s and ’60s, Atem turns the lens on herself as way of exploring myriad narratives, from the personal to the political. In these highly stylised, vibrantly coloured self-portraits, Atem pictures herself as a radiant, enigmatic being, posed against dreamy, multi-layered backdrops, which speak to the co-existence of an idiosyncratic spirituality and the complex realities of migration. Atem was recipient of the 2018 MECCA M-Power Scholarship.
– JH
Image courtesy the artist and MARS, Melbourne
Atong Atem, Red Dust Sticks to You 2022
Ilford smooth pearl print
Atong Atem combines references to both her South Sudanese heritage and her life in Australia. Influenced by eminent Malian artists Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keïta, who popularised African studio portrait photography in the ’50s and ’60s, Atem turns the lens on herself as way of exploring myriad narratives, from the personal to the political. In these highly stylised, vibrantly coloured self-portraits, Atem pictures herself as a radiant, enigmatic being, posed against dreamy, multi-layered backdrops, which speak to the co-existence of an idiosyncratic spirituality and the complex realities of migration. Atem was recipient of the 2018 MECCA M-Power Scholarship.
– JH
Lisa Waup, Continuity of Protection 1 2019
screen printed handmade paper, ochre, cotton thread
Lisa Waup works across weaving, printmaking, jewellery making, sculpture, fashion, and public art. Using the symbolic power of materials, her visual language is inspired by her experience of motherhood and her cultural history – she is a mixed-cultural First Nations artist. The series Continuity of Protection began with an image of a shield ‘that protected the documents of my adoption and the papers of my birth mother’s Freedom of Information Act records.’ In her mesmerising patterns, complex personal references shimmer with delicate earthy ochre colours and faint, sturdy lines – profound connections that travel in numerous directions.
Image courtesy and © the artist. Photo: MECCA
Lisa Waup, Continuity of Protection 1 2019
screen printed handmade paper, ochre, cotton thread
Lisa Waup works across weaving, printmaking, jewellery making, sculpture, fashion, and public art. Using the symbolic power of materials, her visual language is inspired by her experience of motherhood and her cultural history – she is a mixed-cultural First Nations artist. The series Continuity of Protection began with an image of a shield ‘that protected the documents of my adoption and the papers of my birth mother’s Freedom of Information Act records.’ In her mesmerising patterns, complex personal references shimmer with delicate earthy ochre colours and faint, sturdy lines – profound connections that travel in numerous directions.
Image courtesy and © the artist. Photo: MECCA
Image courtesy the artist and STATION, Australia
Sarah Contos, Universes Built and Destroyed in a Dressing Room of a Protagonist Yet to be Born (Telekinesis) 2024
screenprint on canvas
Artists are often among the first to explore the possibilities of new technologies, as Sarah Contos does here with artificial intelligence (AI). By inputting search terms into AI image generators, Contos produces a collage composed of faceted layers drawn from across photographic history. The bracketed word Telekinesis in the title evokes this act of summoning images and ideas, and gestures toward themes of seeing and being seen. The woman depicted appears to be in a state of transformation or reimagining, with the artist leaving us to decide whether this is a space of possibility or conformity.
- CD
Image courtesy the artist and STATION, Australia
Sarah Contos, Universes Built and Destroyed in a Dressing Room of a Protagonist Yet to be Born (Telekinesis) 2024
screenprint on canvas
Artists are often among the first to explore the possibilities of new technologies, as Sarah Contos does here with artificial intelligence (AI). By inputting search terms into AI image generators, Contos produces a collage composed of faceted layers drawn from across photographic history. The bracketed word Telekinesis in the title evokes this act of summoning images and ideas, and gestures toward themes of seeing and being seen. The woman depicted appears to be in a state of transformation or reimagining, with the artist leaving us to decide whether this is a space of possibility or conformity.
- CD
Julie Rrap, Persona and Shadow: Conception 1984
cibachrome print
For the nine images that comprise Persona and Shadow, Julie Rrap photographed herself interpreting famous paintings of women by artists including Edvard Munch and Édouard Manet. She made the series after visiting exhibitions in Europe in the early 1980s and recognising that they rarely included the work of women artists. Also inspired by Jean Genet’s semi-autobiographical novel The Thief’s Journal (1949) the artist explains: “I used it [the novel] as a metaphor for what I was doing with art history – I wasn’t invited, so I had to break in and look around.”5
– JH
Image courtesy the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
Julie Rrap, Persona and Shadow: Conception 1984
cibachrome print
For the nine images that comprise Persona and Shadow, Julie Rrap photographed herself interpreting famous paintings of women by artists including Edvard Munch and Édouard Manet. She made the series after visiting exhibitions in Europe in the early 1980s and recognising that they rarely included the work of women artists. Also inspired by Jean Genet’s semi-autobiographical novel The Thief’s Journal (1949) the artist explains: “I used it [the novel] as a metaphor for what I was doing with art history – I wasn’t invited, so I had to break in and look around.”5
– JH
Image courtesy the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
Image courtesy the artist and Neon Parc, Melbourne
Nabilah Nordin, Interval 2024
welded steel, exterior epoxy modelling compound, exterior acrylic paint
Nabilah Nordin is known for her sculptural assemblages including ones made from discarded furnishings and building materials, which she coats in plaster and paints in bright colours. These idiosyncratic sculptural forms connect us to the artist’s studio as a space of creative abundance and potentiality. Interval is one of a new series of works made in steel that she has bent, welded, coated and painted, to explore sculpture as more fluid ‘line drawings in space’. While more refined, Nordin continues to tap into the power of creative experimentation and to take her chosen medium to its most playful edge.
– CD
Image courtesy the artist and Neon Parc, Melbourne
Nabilah Nordin, Interval 2024
welded steel, exterior epoxy modelling compound, exterior acrylic paint
Nabilah Nordin is known for her sculptural assemblages including ones made from discarded furnishings and building materials, which she coats in plaster and paints in bright colours. These idiosyncratic sculptural forms connect us to the artist’s studio as a space of creative abundance and potentiality. Interval is one of a new series of works made in steel that she has bent, welded, coated and painted, to explore sculpture as more fluid ‘line drawings in space’. While more refined, Nordin continues to tap into the power of creative experimentation and to take her chosen medium to its most playful edge.
– CD
Karen Black, The Solo(ist) 2021
oil on canvas
Karen Black’s emotive paintings hover between abstraction and figuration. In The Solo(ist), her animated, richly coloured brushstrokes conjure a frenzied human figure with black pinpricks for eyes and a vivid orange and red hand raised, as if playing a violin. Framed by a dissolving, high-key swirl of paint, this portrayal of self-absorption appears like a moment, stilled forever amid violent flux. In an interview in 2023, the artist said: ‘I see faces everywhere and figures in everything.'
- JH
Image courtesy and © the artist. Photo: MECCA
Karen Black, The Solo(ist) 2021
oil on canvas
Karen Black’s emotive paintings hover between abstraction and figuration. In The Solo(ist), her animated, richly coloured brushstrokes conjure a frenzied human figure with black pinpricks for eyes and a vivid orange and red hand raised, as if playing a violin. Framed by a dissolving, high-key swirl of paint, this portrayal of self-absorption appears like a moment, stilled forever amid violent flux. In an interview in 2023, the artist said: ‘I see faces everywhere and figures in everything.'
- JH
Image courtesy and © the artist. Photo: MECCA
Image courtesy the artist and Neon Parc, Melbourne. Photo: The Commercial
Diena Georgetti, Reformation CAMPAIGN 2022
acrylic on canvas
"Diena Georgetti’s artworks are a synthesis of many reference points, as she says; ‘I want to make paintings that can be of any time or place.’ Sourced from the margins of internet archives, Georgetti selectively combines and reanimates patterns and motifs from both well-known as well as more obscure branches of art and design history. Georgetti’s interest is in a view of art that isn’t constrained by linear or traditional understandings. Through the collaging of references, her artworks convey something more liberating, where movements and aesthetics bleed into one another and find a new context."
- AB
Image courtesy the artist and Neon Parc, Melbourne. Photo: The Commercial
Diena Georgetti, Reformation CAMPAIGN 2022
acrylic on canvas
"Diena Georgetti’s artworks are a synthesis of many reference points, as she says; ‘I want to make paintings that can be of any time or place.’ Sourced from the margins of internet archives, Georgetti selectively combines and reanimates patterns and motifs from both well-known as well as more obscure branches of art and design history. Georgetti’s interest is in a view of art that isn’t constrained by linear or traditional understandings. Through the collaging of references, her artworks convey something more liberating, where movements and aesthetics bleed into one another and find a new context."
- AB
Heather B Swann, Oh lover, hold me close - The sound of the rock garden 2021
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
Heather B. Swann has said: “The recognition that we are mysterious to ourselves is the driving force for me as an artist.” In Oh lover, hold me close - The sound of the rock garden a crouching figure looks out with bright, curious eyes, enclosed by flat blocks of terracotta and green colour in which scarlet flowers float. Meaning here is open-ended: it could be a study of introspection and delight, a portrayal of claustrophobia or something else altogether. How you read it is up to you.
– JH
Image courtesy the artist and STATION, Australia
Heather B Swann, Oh lover, hold me close - The sound of the rock garden 2021
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
Heather B. Swann has said: “The recognition that we are mysterious to ourselves is the driving force for me as an artist.” In Oh lover, hold me close - The sound of the rock garden a crouching figure looks out with bright, curious eyes, enclosed by flat blocks of terracotta and green colour in which scarlet flowers float. Meaning here is open-ended: it could be a study of introspection and delight, a portrayal of claustrophobia or something else altogether. How you read it is up to you.
– JH
Image courtesy the artist and STATION, Australia
Image courtesy the artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne. Photo: Andrew Curtis
Vivienne Binns, Learning from Grace Crowley and Ralph Balson 1994
acrylic on canvas
Recognised as one of Australia’s first feminist artists, Vivienne Binns started her career with a provocative exhibition at the Watters Gallery in Sydney in 1967 featuring powerful sexual imagery which shocked audiences and critics at the time. Painted some thirty years later, Binn’s Learning from Grace Crowley and Ralph Balson (1994) diverges from her earlier subversive style while continuing her interest in forms of geometric abstraction. In this painting, Binn’s grid appears as a double-edged attempt to understand the two key Modernist artists she references in the title of the work, while also critiquing abstractions dominance in the arts
- AB
Image courtesy the artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne. Photo: Andrew Curtis
Vivienne Binns, Learning from Grace Crowley and Ralph Balson 1994
acrylic on canvas
Recognised as one of Australia’s first feminist artists, Vivienne Binns started her career with a provocative exhibition at the Watters Gallery in Sydney in 1967 featuring powerful sexual imagery which shocked audiences and critics at the time. Painted some thirty years later, Binn’s Learning from Grace Crowley and Ralph Balson (1994) diverges from her earlier subversive style while continuing her interest in forms of geometric abstraction. In this painting, Binn’s grid appears as a double-edged attempt to understand the two key Modernist artists she references in the title of the work, while also critiquing abstractions dominance in the arts
- AB
Michelle Ussher, Athena has crap days too 2014
oil on linen
"Michelle Ussher’s Athena refers to the Ancient Greek goddess known as the protector of Athens and a figure burdened with multiple authoritative roles. By bringing Athena back to the everyday frustration suggested in the title, Athena has crap days too, Ussher questions how mythical women have been constructed and the agendas they were designed to serve. While Athena appears outwardly composed, with the coiffured hair expected of her status, the painting also reveals her inner thoughts, hinting at a more unsettled and interior life."
- CD
Image courtesy the artist and STATION, Australia
Michelle Ussher, Athena has crap days too 2014
oil on linen
"Michelle Ussher’s Athena refers to the Ancient Greek goddess known as the protector of Athens and a figure burdened with multiple authoritative roles. By bringing Athena back to the everyday frustration suggested in the title, Athena has crap days too, Ussher questions how mythical women have been constructed and the agendas they were designed to serve. While Athena appears outwardly composed, with the coiffured hair expected of her status, the painting also reveals her inner thoughts, hinting at a more unsettled and interior life."
- CD
Image courtesy the artist and STATION, Australia
Author Profiles:
AB: Annabel Brown is an emerging curator and writer based in Melbourne who holds an Honours of Fine Art (Curating) from Monash University. In 2022 she was recipient of a MECCA curatorial internship. In 2024, she was selected as the recipient of Gertrude Contemporary's Emerging Curators Program.
CD: Charlotte Day is director, Art Museums at the University of Melbourne and curator of the MECCA Collection.
JH: Jennifer Higgie is an Australian writer who lives in London. Her latest books are The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2023) and The Mirror and the Palette: 500 Years of Women’s Self-Portraits (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2021).
References (accessed March 2025):
1. Patricia Piccinini, ‘Curriculum Vitae’, patriciapiccinini.net
2. Judith Wright, ‘A Continuing Fable’, National Gallery of Australia, 2014, nga.gov.au
3. Sally Ross, ‘Autoportrait’, AGNSW, 2021, artgallery.nsw.gov.au
4. Briony Downes, ‘Great Wings Beating in Heather B. Swann’, Art Guide Australia, 18 November 2021, artguide.com.au
5. ‘Julie Rrap, Standing on her Own Shoulders: interview with Jennifer Higgie’, Ocula, 12 February 2024 ocula.com
Please click the provided link to access the individual URL referenced.