Gail Nichols, Ice-Vessel, 2010, Soda glazed ceramic, 34 x 40 x 40cm. Collection Gippsland Art Gallery, purchased, 2000.
Chris Langlois, Waterfield, no.2, 2012, oil on linen, 183 x 198cm. Donated by the artist through the Australian Government Cultural Gifts Program, 2013. Collection Gippsland Art Gallery.
Raymond Arnold, Elsewhere World, 2016, digital print on paper (unique state), 138.8 x 101.8cm (image). Collection Gippsland Art Gallery, purchased, 2016.
Stephen Wickham, From Stefan Weisz for Georg Weisz #1, 2000, type E print, (edition 1/5), 98.8 x 98.8cm (image). Collection Gippsland Art Gallery. Donated by Evan Lowenstein through the Australian Government Cultural Gifts Program, 2012.
Winter has always been incredibly symbolic. It invokes seasonal changes, psychological states, dark moods and feelings of solitude. Winter also functions as an artistic inspiration and it’s this singular word, along with its various emotions and associations, that is being explored in the aptly titled Winter at Gippsland Art Gallery.
Spanning painting, printmaking, photography and ceramics, Winter is concerned with both the physical changes the season brings and how these changes can invoke certain states of mind. With works drawn from the Gippsland Art Gallery collection, the exhibition includes pieces by Raymond Arnold, Robert Boynes, William Breen, Judy Dorber, Lesley Duxbury, Ron Eden, Kaye Green, Deborah Klein, Chris Langlois, Hiroe Swen, Gail Nichols, Stephen Wickham and Wayne Viney.
Each work in the exhibition has been curated with the purpose of providing a unique and engaging interaction with the season. While Raymond Arnold’s Elsewhere World presents the strange and quiet state of winter through the Tasmanian landscape, Stephen Wickham shows us the snow-covered scenery of Mt Buffalo National Park: the latter of which is dedicated to Wickham’s deceased uncle.
Of course winter doesn’t always invoke loneliness and loss. Sometimes winter is liminal, as demonstrated by the hazy window frost of Chris Langlois. At other moments, the exhibition hints towards winter as being a pivotal time (and space) for contemplation and renewal.
Winter
Gippsland Art Gallery
27 May – 27 August
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.
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.
Pia Murphy leans into curiosity for her latest exhibition at Nicholas Thompson Gallery. Look What I Found is “referring to that experience in childhood of discovering surprising things in nature.” It’s a methodology Murphy uses in her practice, working with the sole intention of honest discovery.
Equal parts monumental and fleeting, the sand sculptures of French artist Théo Mercier chart the histories—beyond our lines of vision—that a landscape reveals and conceals. Mercier’s MIRRORSCAPE is now showing at Mona.
The theme for the 10th iteration of Parrtjima, the Aboriginal festival of light that takes place annually in the Northern Territory, is ‘timelessness’. The festival aims to reflect Indigenous culture and beliefs: both ancient knowledge and contemporary concerns.
In his first commercial presentation in Australia, one of Mexico’s most acclaimed contemporary artists uses his architectural background to create poetic, finely calibrated sculptural investigations of spatial perception, balance and equilibrium. Jose Dávila’s Physics of Uncertainty is now showing at COMA Gallery.
