Kate Clark, Gallant, 2016, fallow deer hide, antlers, clay, foam, thread, pins, rubber eyes, wire, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist.
Ronnie Van Hout, Sculp D. Dog, 2001, pegasus print, 83 x 52.5 cm. Courtesy the artist and Darren Knight Gallery.
Jazmina Cininas, Blood Sisters, 2016.
Rona Green, Dusty Rhodes, 2011, hand coloured linocut, 76 x 56 cm, edition 23.
Deborah Klein, Ladybird Woman, watercolour on Khadi rag paper, (Photo credit: Tim Gresham).
Bharti Kher, The hunter and the prophet (from the Hybrid series), 2004, digital C-print, 114.3 x 74.9 cm.
Human-animal hybrids have captured our imagination in mythology and storytelling for thousands of years. But it is only in recent years that the amalgam has become a scientific possibility: in 2017 scientists successfully grew human stem cells in pig and sheep embryos. Scientists call these hybrids chimeras, after the monstrous Greek mythological creature pieced from lion, goat and snake members.
To coincide with the 200-year anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein, RMIT Gallery presents My Monster: The Human Animal Hybrid, an exhibition exploring our simultaneous fascination and horror with the fusion of the human and animal.
Curated by Evelyn Tsitas, the exhibition stems from her academic research into the human-animal hybrid in science fiction. Tsitas’ exhibition draws on ideas in humanities, feminism, philosophy, animal studies and the visual arts to examine “the complex issues surrounding human and animal relationships, our interconnectivity, and also how the hybrid form is used as a powerful metaphor”.
Presenting over 20 Australian and international artists whose work features the hybrid in various forms and mediums, My Monster examines the life cycle and narrative of the hybrid across five gallery spaces. Included are works by well-known Australian artists Julia deVille, Lisa Roet, Sam Leach, Sidney Nolan and Peter Booth.
The hybrid is the ultimate symbol of the outsider, tapping into our fear of difference and the Other. Human-animal hybrids disturb our sense of ourselves, leading us to question which fragment is more monstrous.
My Monster: The Human Animal Hybrid
RMIT Gallery
29 June – 18 August
Taking an expanded approach to Indigenous curatorial practice, the ninth TarraWarra Biennial features work responding to themes of regeneration, restoring spirit, and disrupting colonial space. Three artists discuss their contributions.
Curated by artistic director Hoor Al Qasimi, the program is centred by the theme of Rememory. Originating from author Toni Morrison, the ideas seek to explore the intersection of memory and history—revisiting, reconstructing and reclaiming histories that have been erased or repressed.
Wendy Sharpe’s expressive paintings incorporate social criticism and otherworldly dreamscapes, blending the real and imagined. With a current exhibition at Philip Bacon Galleries, she reflects on her three-decade practice and that iconic painting of Magda Szubanski.
Phuong Ngo’s first major solo exhibition Inheritance, now showing at West Space, spans generations and continents, incorporates objects bought and sold across family lines, and draws on both spiritual and everyday rituals.
Mungari, a landmark exhibition at Sydney’s Chau Chak Wing Museum, marks the return of the Gweagal spears to their ancestral country while speaking to the constellation of relationships that knit together people, objects and place.
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.
