As Art Guide Australia enters its 25th year of production, we’re looking back on conversation-shaping pieces from our archives, and the thematic threads that emerge within the landscape of Australian art.
From matrescence-themed collages and intimate family portraits to a series of events centred on the intersection of design and fertility, revisit six pieces from the Art Guide archives that explore the relationship between art and motherhood.
Designing Fertility? How childrearing is entwined with aesthetics
Lauren Carroll Harris interviews Jana Perkovic and Emily Wong about PITH, a series of private food and reading groups held during Melbourne Design Week in 2023 that look at how women through the ages modified their fertility, bodies and childbearing capacity by way of ancient recipes, long before the advent of modern contraception.
Lillian O’Neil peers at the stars through the trees
“For generations, popular culture has presented motherhood as a time of sweet contentment and effortless joy. Yet in reality, the transition to becoming a mother can be wrought with physical and emotional upheaval, bringing about seismic shifts in the body, identity and sense of self.” Briony Downes writes about Lillian O’Neill’s 2024 exhibition at UNSW Galleries, The light that spills across the ground between shadows, which explores the concept of matrescence.
Judy Watson and Helen Johnson on women, motherhood, creating and colonialism
Tiarney Miekus interviews Judy Watson and Helen Johnson about the red thread of history, loose ends, a 2023 collaboration initially at the NGA and then the Museum of Art and Culture Lake Macquarie. The artists discuss working together, motherhood and colonialism.
Sentimental to confronting: Sheree Dohnt’s depictions of motherhood
“A newborn shares a moment of skin-to-skin contact on their mother’s chest. A woman lies on the couch with a cat on her lap and a child by her side, staring into the middle distance.” Giselle Au-Nhien writes about Sheree Dohnt’s intimate series of watercolour paintings from 2023 that show the joys and challenges of women’s experiences of parenting.
Briony Downes writes about Sally Anderson’s two-decade painting practice that uses colour, abstraction and landscape as vessels to communicate layered influences of motherhood, femininity, domesticity and memory.
When making art becomes a family practice
Jane O’Sullivan talks to Casey Jenkins about negotiating life as a new parent amongst a practice that deals with feminism, autonomy and power through solo durational performances, craftivism, and communal and participatory works
Suggested Reading
Silent Spring
The cancellation of Khaled Sabsabi’s presentation at Venice Biennale signals a long-simmering breakdown of trust between artists and institutions—one that risks threatening the breadth and depth of artistic expression in Australia for generations to come. Dee Jefferson reports.
Dee Jefferson
Julie Fragar wins the 2025 Archibald Prize
Congratulations to Julie Fragar, who has won the 2025 Archibald Prize for Flagship Mother Multiverse (Justene), her portrait of fellow artist and colleague Justene Williams.
Art Guide Australia
20 Questions: Laura Jones on painting processes
From painting rituals to an obsession with flowers, we caught up with Laura Jones to discuss her process and practice, her current solo show at Jan Murphy Gallery, and what it was like to win the Archibald Prize for her painting of Tim Winton.
Sally Gearon
Of art and appetites
Artists have long been consumed with what we eat, seen appetites as a metaphor for nourishment and vulnerability. But as Lee Tran Lam finds out, the new wave of collaborations between the worlds of art and food signals a growing cultural desire to break down barriers—and forge new connections in unexpected ways.
Lee Tran Lam
Amanda Bell makes light work
Amanda Bell’s poignant new commission for the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts transforms the heaviness of history and unsettles hierarchies of place.
Claire G. Coleman
Tina Stefanou’s class acts
Traversing boundaries of the senses and of class, the work of Tina Stefanou is grounded in community. A solo exhibition at ACCA and a group exhibition at Bundanon showcase her work with unlikely collaborators.