Waanyi artist Gordon Hookey has been creating artwork for more than three decades. Describing his style as pictograms of a scenario, with images and symbols connecting a sprawling narrative, Hookey’s work is imbued with elements of activism, pop culture and lived experience.
Surveying Hookey’s oeuvre of paintings, sculpture, and prints, A MURRIALITY includes many billboard sized works, filled to the edges with witty text, corrupt politicians and anthropomorphised native animals.
Co-curating the exhibition with Liz Nowell, José Da Silva reveals, “While Gordon is deadly serious about his concerns, his practice includes plenty of bawdy caricatures and jokes. He is a master of political satire and enjoys a good bout of silliness to disarm viewers.”
Commissioned specifically for the exhibition is a collection of freestanding paintings set up on orange traffic cones with wheels, appearing like a visual procession of flags or placards marching through the gallery. A callback to a series of banners Hookey created in 2021 for public rallies, Da Silva points out the new commissions evoke the concept of protest through their form and subjects. “The resulting works cover a broad range of ideas surrounding inequality and injustice, including Aboriginal survival through colonisation (and gentrification) and the housing crisis in Australia as a material consequence of greed and government policy.”
At the final stop of a national tour that began in 2022, A MURRIALITY presents the oeuvre of an artist keenly aware of art’s ability to communicate. “One of the strongest impressions we had putting this exhibition together is Gordon’s genuine and steadfast belief that art can still be a catalyst for encouraging communities to act on not just civil and political rights but economic, social, and cultural rights,” Da Silva says. “The exhibition reminds us that his works exemplify the idea of change, showing us possibilities for civic resistance, and ways to feel mobilised and ready to effect change.”
A MURRIALITY
Gordon Hookey
Plimsoll Gallery
8 June—11 August
This article was originally published in the May/June 2025 print edition of Art Guide Australia.
Suggested Reading
Writers Revealed opens the history books
Now showing at HOTA, Writers Revealed is an ambitious exhibition covering six centuries, presenting manuscripts, letters, illustrations and rare editions from many of the most influential authors in English literature.
Barnaby Smith
Book Preview: Speech Patterns by Nadia Hernández and Jon Campbell
As I walk through the suburban streets, I find myself thinking about the publication Speech Patterns: Nadia Hernández & Jon Campbell. It accompanied their two-person exhibition at The Art Gallery of Western Australia in 2022, which explored their shared preoccupations with class, identity and value systems.
Jackson McLaren
Community, connection and camera obscura with Claire Conroy
Community is the foundation of Claire Conroy’s exhibition at Lismore Regional Gallery. As a new arrival to the area, her art practice ties her to fellow artists, while her medium, camera obscura, allows for a deepening of social connections with her sitters as they commit to the shoot.
Emma-Kate Wilson
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
Bruce Johnson McLean appointed First Nations curatorial fellow of the 2026 Biennale of Sydney
Bruce Johnson McLean, one of Australia’s leading voices on First Nations art, has been appointed the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain First Nations curatorial fellow for the next Biennale of Sydney. Steve Dow talks with Johnson McLean on his storied history, and what he hopes to achieve in the 2026 Biennale.
Steve Dow
The balance of tension
At once an exhibition, performance series, and community-led workshops, Push / Pull is an ambitious program that brings together themes and areas of focus that honour the histories of Adelaide Contemporary Experimental as a platform for radical experimentation.