Australian Women Artists

Australian Women Artists The podcast Ep 86 Elizabeth Barnett Elizabeth Barnett is a painter and printmaker who also utilises textiles and pottery. Her still life and interior paintings have become instantly recognisable — plant-filled nooks, stacked books, jugs and vases, all rendered in a distinct palette that reflects the season. She has a deep reverence for the everyday. From her early training in the rigorous world of printmaking to lush, translucent paintings on stretched linen, and eventually to thickly layered oil works in her bushland studio. She is also an incredible community builder, having co-founded Melbourne's iconic Schoolhouse Studios, a massive, not-for-profit creative hub. Today, working from her home studio in the Macedon Ranges, Elizabeth continues to celebrate the gentle, wondrous beauty of daily life while acting as a passionate advocate for female representation in the arts. “Her subjects do not sit flat upon the canvas, but instead reach up from it, enlivened by the wild and natural world. This liveliness belies the ‘stillness’ of still life painting and along with Barnett’s painterly gestures of shadow, line and colour creates a visual dynamism reaches beyond tradition.” To have a listen to our conversation, head to the link in my bio or search Australian Women Artists wherever you find your podcasts. Elizabeth is represented by Flinders Lane Gallery in Melbourne. Images supplied by artists 1. EB 2. Nocturne Arrangement 2026 oil on linen 215 x 153 3. Floribunda and Gwen 2026 oil on linen 81 x 91 4. Nocturne 2024 oil on linen 153 x 122 5 & 6 installation shots

Australian Women Artists The podcast Ep 85 Nell Nell is one of Australia's most distinctive contemporary artists, working across painting, sculpture, performance, video and installation. She has spent three decades building a visual language shaped by rock 'n' roll, Buddhist philosophy and religious iconography. Smiley faces, lightning bolts, ghosts, tears and eggs recur throughout her art and help create works that have been described as playful, insightful and poetic. Her work explores the binaries of human existence – birth and death, sorrow and happiness, light and dark. It’s a fascinating story and, with 300+ exhibitions to consider, I’ve had the unenviable task of choosing just a few to discuss without minimising the others otherwise we’d be still chatting well into 2027! ‘Nell has developed a unique visual language that traverses scale, medium and materiality. Regardless of the outcome, her work explores oppositional thresholds and the fertile space that exist beyond the binary: from intimate to immersive, found to fabricated, high to low culture, two-dimensions to three-dimensions, individual to collaborative, ancient to contemporary, sacred to profane.... At the heart of Nell’s practice is an offering of connection and companionship; a reminder that we are not alone.’ Station Gallery (representing Nell). To have a listen to our conversation, head to my bio or search ‘Australian Women Artists’ wherever you normally find your podcasts. Images 1. Holding Both , 2026, Museum of Contemporary Art, Photo Anna Kucera 2. Let There Be Robe, 2011, Museum of Old and New Art, Photo Rémi Chauvin 3. ROCK GATE, 2019, Carriageworks, Photo Zan Wimberley 4. Nell x Colin McCahon: Through the Wall of Birth and Death, 2024, Dowse Art Museum, Photo Sam Hartnett 5. Face Everything, 2025-26, Heide Modern, Photo Christo Crocker 6+7. NELL ANNE QUILT, 2020-24, Photo Jenni Carter

Australian Women Artists The podcast Ep 84 Chelsea Gustafsson Chelsea Gustafsson is an artist whose work invites us to look closer at the quiet, often overlooked items of our daily lives—transforming mass-produced objects, ornaments, and domestic clutter into highly detailed, deeply metaphorical still lifes. Her paintings are incredibly beautiful, but they also carry a sharp undercurrent of modern anxiety, apathy, and ecological grief. From her early beginnings influenced by 3D sculptors to painting on her dining table, Chelsea has built a formidable practice that has seen her work acquired by the City of Melbourne, celebrated as a finalist in the prestigious Kennedy Prize, and exhibited internationally in Berlin. And very recently, she was selected for the celebrated Salon des Refusés at the S.H. Ervin Gallery. “I like to play with objects and textures that don’t necessarily sit well together naturally. Through the process of constructing items into a sculptural form and twisting or balancing them to find their sweet spot for a composition and watching how the light falls and reflects across them, they begin to gel as a single form and a beauty emerges.” Head to my bio and follow the link to our podcast conversation...or search Australian Women Artists wherever you find your podcasts. Chelsea is represented by: Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne Penny Contemporary, Hobart Michael Reid Berlin Images 1. CG supplied by artist 2. Self Portrait, 2026, Oil on board (all works on these images are OOB) 30 x 40 3. Lobster, 2025, 15 x 20 4. Surfcoast Highway, 2019, 15 x 20 5. Mint, 2020, 40 x 50 6. Tasmanian Tigers, 2024 22 x 30 7. Trophy 01, 2022, 15 x 20

Australian Women Artists The podcast Ep 83 Nicole Kelly Nicole Kelly is one of contemporary Australia’s most sensitive and intellectually rigorous painters, working beautifully across landscape, portraiture, and still life. She creates deeply evocative, expressive oil works that challenge the very mechanics of how we represent, and perhaps try to own, the Australian landscape. In fact, it would probably be fair to say that she is an artist who's spent nearly two decades quietly ‘unsettling’ one of Australia's oldest genres. Since graduating from the National Art School and winning the prestigious Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship, Nicole has built a formidable practice defined by evolving technical processes and academic rigour. She’s been a finalist in a number of awards and has also won significant prizes including her recently winning the prestigious Evelyn Chapman Art Award. She will utilise that to study Nordic painting traditions. And we need to discuss that of course. Her paintings pull you in with glowing colour and soft, pliable brushwork, then quietly remind you that no landscape is ever just scenery. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections. A really enjoyable conversation and to hear it, head to the link in my bio or search ‘Australian Women Artists’ wherever you find your podcasts. You can find more information about Nicole at her website: www.nicolerenaekelly.com Nicole is represented by Nicholas Thomson Gallery, Melbourne (@nicholasthompsongallery) Art House Gallery, Sydney (@arthousegallery) Images 1. NK via Nicholas Thompson Gallery 2. Jumaadi + Clouds + Rain, 2017 oil on polyester (all paintings on this list are OOP), 150 x 130 3. Rain Inscribed Lines, 2024, 169 x 198 4. Bird Hour, 2026, 117 x 107 5. Dance of March Flies, 2024, 138 x 167 6. Waiting for the Sun, 2026, 122 x 153

Australian Women Artists The podcast Ep 82 Kirsten Coelho Kirsten Coelho’s importance lies partly in how she actually expands the language of Australian ceramics. Kirsten is one of Australia’s leading contemporary ceramic artists, known for almost ethereal porcelain vessels that sit between the functional and the sculptural. Her works in porcelain are “creating functional forms and vessels of other-worldly perfection that fuse the formal with the abstract.” Her work is shaped by the history of ceramics, architectural surfaces, and a deep interest in how ordinary objects carry memory and cultural meaning and it’s grounded in international ceramic history. But it also speaks to distinctly Australian conditions: light, landscape, domestic life, and the material traces of settler history. And we discuss that in our lovely languid conversation. Kirsten’s work is exhibited extensively internationally, and she has won significant awards, including the prestigious Sidney Myer Ceramic Award, the City of Hobart Art Prize and the Josephine Ulrick Ceramic Award. Her work is represented in numerous institutional collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Kirsten is represented by Sullivan Strumpf NSW + Singapore, Philip Bacon Galleries Qld, Adrian Sassoon UK London, The Scottish Gallery UK Edinburgh. @kirsten_coelho_ @ sullivanstrumpf @philipbacongalleries @adrian_sassoon_gallery @scottishgallery Images supplied by artist 1. KC by Daniel Noone 2. Horizon, image by Grant Hancock 3. Pillar, image by Grant Hancock 4. Ithaca, image by Grant Hancock

Australian Women Artists The podcast Ep 81 Jenna Lee Jenna Lee is an artist whose work invites us to slow down and reconsider the stories hidden within the words and objects we often take for granted. A Gulumerridjin (Larrakia), Wardaman and KarraJarri woman with Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Irish and Scottish heritage, Jenna has developed a remarkable practice that works across sculpture, installation, paper, photography and moving image. She transforms books, archives and printed texts into beautiful and thought-provoking artworks that ask important questions...including who gets to tell history. Jenna's work has been recognised through numerous awards, including the 2024 Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize, the 2023 Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award (Emerging Artist), the 2020 Wandjuk Marika 3D Memorial Award at the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA), the 2019 Dreaming Award presented by Creative Australia. She was even one of 5 shortlisted artists for the Venice Biennale for 2026. Jenna Lee has developed a unique and valuable artistic voice. Jenna is represented by Mars Gallery, and some of her available works can be found at https://marsgallery.com.au/jenna-lee/ More works and info can be also be found at https://jennalee.art/about Images 1 JL image by Anna Katsanevas 2 Instalation view of JL & Kojima Shouten's Balarr (To become light) 2023 3 White Grass Trees 1-3, 2021, pages of 'Aboriginal words and place names' bookbind thread, organic cotton thread, florist wire, glue, bookcover board 119, base 20 x 23 to 39 x 38 4 from HIStory Vessels exhibition, 2020, deconstructed pages of the Ladybird history book, 'The Story of Captain Cook' 5 To make light together 03, 2023, digital photograph 51 x 66 Just wanted to also drop a quick note here that I will be taking a few weeks off after this is published and wanted to say a heartfelt thanks for everyone’s support and encouragement thus far. I've enjoyed this immensely. I’ll be back in a few weeks with some very exciting guests and projects.

Australian Women Artists The podcast Ep 80 Tonee Messiah I think it would be fair to say that Tonee Messiah’s work asks questions of you. It asks that you stand in front and notice how you feel. Her paintings have been described by her as living in the landscape of the mind. Tonee Messiah was born in Israel and spent her childhood moving between a kibbutz and coastal Australia, finally settling in Sydney at eleven. That experience of perpetual transition — of never quite arriving — became the foundation of one of the most quietly original painting practices in the country. She has a bachelor of Visual Arts with Honours from Sydney College of the Arts and a Masters of Fine Art from UNSW. Her work has entered the collections of Artbank and the Monash University Museum of Art, she collaborated with fashion label Gorman in 2022, and that same year won the Waverley Art Prize. She teaches painting at UNSW Art and Design and the National Art School. Tonee is represented by @nicholasthompsongallery Images 1. TM 2. A Fabricated Reflection, 2025 oil on poly cotton 122 x102 3. Essential Sensitivities, 2025, oil on poly cotton 102 x 76 4. Constructive Beliefs, 2025 oil on poly cotton 102 x 76 5. Slight Reposition on a Soft Decision, 2025 oil on poly cotton 122 x 107

Australian Women Artists The podcast Ep 79 Leah Thiessen Leah Thiessen is a painter whose work is deeply shaped by place, memory, and the living energy of the landscape around her. Leah has spent close to two decades turning a very special place in Northern NSW into one of the most distinctive bodies of work in contemporary Australian painting. But she didn't start there. She began her creative life in fashion design, before retraining through a fine arts diploma, and, much later, a Bachelor of Visual Arts at Southern Cross University. In 2008 Leah left Sydney's Northern Beaches for the Northern Rivers region, and it was there that her real subject found her. Her practice is both intuitive and deeply observant. Working through mark-making, scraping back, and layers of paint, Leah builds surfaces that feel alive with movement and feeling. Her paintings seem to capture the spirit of a place. She's now represented by Flinders Lane Gallery in Melbourne, Despard Gallery in Hobart, and Lethbridge Gallery in Brisbane, with solo shows including Broadwater, Biome, and her most recent exhibition, Rustling Canopy. She's been twice named in the Top 100 Collectable Artists. ‘The course of painting is a primal impulse to mark. It is a physical and emotional experience. I paint in an expressive and gestural way capturing the force and energy of a place. I create a visceral experience through the use of mark making and the application of paint. My paintings are process driven and it is only through the act of painting over, scraping back and drawing into, that my work is resolved.’ Head to the link in my bio to hear the episode or search Australian Women Artists wherever you get your podcasts. Leah is represented by @flinderslanegallery, @despardgallery, @lethbridgegallery Images of Leah's work to follow in the next post...

Australian Women Artists The podcast Ep. 78 Evie Adasal Evie Adasal is an artist whose practice has evolved — from photography and film through to painting, from direct landscape observation toward a more conceptually layered engagement with the environment. She brings an unusually layered visual intelligence to her painting practice. Her work is rooted in abstraction, drawn from the cultivated landscapes of public gardens and urban green spaces, and built through a process of slow, meditative looking and careful, beautiful layering of colour. She continues to push the boundaries of how landscapes can be interpreted through abstraction. Evie’s work ‘navigates the delicate balance between order and spontaneity, restraint and vibrancy. Her palette reflects this tension, as she moves between subtlety and intensity, bringing together elements that are both harmonious and disruptive’. For the past three years, she has also been awarded a number of shortlistings, including in prestigious national prizes such as the National Emerging Art Prize, Fisher’s Ghost Award, Hawkesbury Art Prize and the Georges River Art Prize, while winning the Anthea Polson Gallery Award at the Paddington Art Prize in 2023 and she’s very recently had a successful exhibition at Olsen Gallery in Sydney. Evie is represented by Olsen Gallery, Sydney (@olsen_gallery) and can be seen from Sept 26 at @sydneycontemporary For some available works copy and paste link below into your browser: https://www.olsengallery.com/exhibition/evie-adasal/ Images 1. EA by Brett East 2. I never promised you a Rose Garden, 2024, 180 x 150 (all paintings on carousel are synthetic polymer on poly cotton) 3. D-XI, 2026, 120 x 130 4. D-I, 2026, 120 x 130 5. D-X, 2026, 130 x 140 6. D-XV, 2026, 60 x 60

Australian Women Artists The podcast Ep 77 Dani McKenzie Dani McKenzie’s story begins, unusually, not in an art school studio but in a bedroom — where, after a formative trip through Europe and a chance encounter with the work of Belgian painter Michaël Borremans, she spent six months teaching herself to paint. That instinct and passion carried her into the National Art School in Sydney, where she completed both her undergraduate and Master of Fine Art degrees, and where her enduring fascination with photography — memory, privacy, and the lives of strangers — first took shape. Early in her career, Dani worked from found photographs, creating imaginative worlds conjured from those images. But it was the ubiquitous disruptions of 2020 that changed everything. Forced to slow down, she began walking her own neighbourhood in inner-Melbourne, photographing it at night, and turning her lens — quite literally — on her own life and surroundings. The results are a stunning body of work. Paintings of glowing windows, quiet streets, and private moments caught in public space, executed with a photographic precision that somehow still feels deeply human. Dani is represented by PIERMARQ Gallery, Sydney, MARS Gallery, Melbourne and Long Story Short Gallery (Los Angeles, Paris, New York) and has held solo exhibitions in Paris, Los Angeles, Sydney and Melbourne. Dani mentions being influenced by Clarice Beckett. You could copy and paste this link into your browser to hear a conversation I had with Jennifer Higgie on Clarice: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/australian-women-artists/id1794012822?i=1000695950466 Head to the link in my bio to have a listen to our conversation. Alternatively, search Australian Women Artists wherever you find your podcasts. Images 1. DM image supplied by artist 2. Waiting For You, 2022, oil & acrylic on linen 3. Waiting for Gelato, 2021, oil on masonite 4. That Little Italian Place on the Corner, 2022, oil & acrylic on linen 5. Room With a View, 2023 oil & acrylic on linen 6. Closing Time I, 2023, oil & acrylic on board 7. Date Night, 2024, oil & acrylic on linen 8. The Final Hour, 2025, oil & acrylic on linen

Australian Women Artists The podcast Ep 76 Kate Shaw Kate Shaw is an award-winning Australian artist who spends her time working and living between Melbourne and the US, having exhibited in Australia for over 20 years and internationally for over 10 years. Through her luminous landscapes, Kate has created an artistic world that is quite breathtaking, but also quite unsettling. Over that career, it would be fair to say she has fundamentally reinterpreted how we perceive the natural world. Her practice began to be recognized not just for its innovative methodology, but for its ecological statements. Kate has held solo exhibitions in New York, San Francisco, London, Hong Kong and throughout Australia. She has also been part of group exhibitions in many other countries. ‘Kate has become a compelling voice in contemporary painting, known for her immersive, surreal landscapes that probe our relationship with the natural world. Shaw’s richly layered works — created through ‘paint pours’, resin, and reflective surfaces — evoke geological and atmospheric phenomena while inviting contemplation on ecological fragility, climate change, and the psychological experience of nature.’ Olsen Gallery To hear our conversation head to the link in my bio or search Australian Women Artists wherever you find your podcasts. Kate is represented by Olsen Gallery, Sydney (@olsen_gallery) For more info on Kate: www.kateshaw.org Images: 1. KS by Belle Stewart 2. Divine Matrix 2026 acrylic & resin on board 120 diam 3. 89 Seconds to Midnight 2025 acrylic on board 120 diam 4. Aurora 2016 acrylic and resin on board 120 diam 5. Carbon Entanglement 2026 acrylic and resin 60 x 50

Australian Women Artists The podcast Ep 75 Lucy Culliton Lucy Culliton is a gem. It was such an enjoyable conversation – she always has interesting stories, and I was just lucky enough to be sitting on the other side of the table. It becomes quite apparent that Lucy finds a portrait in everything she looks at — a cactus spine, a prize rooster, a knitted doll, a greyhound asleep in the afternoon light. And that’s because she paints with an intimacy that seems to breathe life into those everyday scenes and objects? Lucy Culliton lives and works on a property at the edge of Bibbenluke in the Snowy Monaro. There she has created a beautiful garden, and she also shares the property with cows, sheep, goats, horses, pigeons, ducks and many rescued greyhounds. The farm is not a backdrop to the work. It is the work. Lucy studied at the National Art School, graduating in 1996, and has spent three decades building one of the most beloved and distinctive bodies of work in Australian painting. She is a multiple Archibald, Wynne and Sulman finalist, and this year won the Sir John Sulman Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Her paintings make you slow down. They make you look harder. And they make the ordinary world feel, somehow, like more than enough. I decided within seconds of starting this conversation that, for listeners to get the full picture, it would best to just let it roll. No editing. It is what it is with Lucy. And aren’t we all the luckier for that. Lucy is represented by @kingstreetgallery in Sydney and @janmurphygallery in Brisbane Her exhibition, Grasses, Tussocks & Sedges is at King St till 4 July Head to my bio for a link to the podcast episode or search for Australian Women Artists wherever you find your podcasts. Images 1. LC via Painted River Project 2. Bibbenluke Spring 2025 oil on canvas 122 x 99 3. Top Swamp II 2023 oil on canvas 199 x 122 4. Toolah, artist assist and and model oil on canvas 140 x140 (winner Sulman Prize 2026) 5. View From The Pavillion Gunningrah 2026 oil on canvas 184 x 183 6. Love lies bleeding 2017 oil on canvas 244 x 183

Australian Women Artists The podcast Ep 74 Rachel Milne Rachel Milne is a Newcastle-based painter whose work turns everyday interiors, objects, and moments into beautifully compelling paintings. Rachel grew up in Cambridge, trained in Cardiff, and built an early career in Britain serious enough to earn her membership of the Royal West of England Academy. Then, in 2013, she packed up and moved to the other side of the world — to Newcastle, New South Wales — and something shifted. She is a painter of interiors. Of unmade beds and cluttered studios, of hallways and mirrors, of spaces that hold the shape of the people who inhabit them. She works in oil, from life, often in a single sitting — because she believes the camera makes too many decisions on her behalf. She has been a finalist in numerous significant awards including the Wynne Prize and Portia Geach and has won the Evelyn Chapman Award, Muswellbrook Art Prize and the Vincent Prize. More recently she has spent time as artist-in-residence at the Liddell Power Station — finding beauty in a building the world was busy demolishing. And who could have guessed this started from painting backgrounds for Wallace and Gromit. Head to the link in my bio to have a listen to our conversation. Rachel’s latest exhibition: Newcastle, High is on at King Street Gallery on William (Sydney) till 4 July 2026. For more info and examples of her work, head to www.rachelmilneartist.com.au Rachel is represented in Sydney by King Street Gallery on William (@kingstreetgallery) and Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne (@sophiegannongallery) Images 1. RM by David Griffen 2. The Stage, Victoria Theatre 2021 160 x 120 3. Nest, 2022 oil on board (winner Muswellbrook Painting Prize) 4. Studio Haefligers 2016 50 x 80 (Bathurst Regional Art Gallery Collection) 5. View From The Stage, Victoria Theatre, 2021 80 x 100 6. Town Hall 2026 60 x 80

Australian Women Artists The podcast Ep 73 Kirtika Kain Kirtika Kain was born in New Delhi, India and raised on Sydney's Northern Beaches, and is making some of the most viscerally powerful art in the country right now. Kirtika is a printmaker, a painter, and an alchemist. Her works often depict the overlooked. One of the extraordinary ways she does that is by taking materials such as pigments, wax, sindoor, human hair, charcoal, gold and tar and transforming them into works that carry centuries of inherited memory. Her practice is a reckoning with identity, and what might be termed the silences passed down through generations. But it’s more than that. It's also an act of celebration and the grandeur of a culture that has never been properly archived. She has shown at the Biennale of Sydney, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, and in galleries across Australia and Europe. Head to the link in my bio to hear our conversation. Kirtika (@kirtika.kain) is represented by Roslyn Oxley9 (@roslynoxley9) Images 1. KK in her studio at Parramatta Artists’ Studios, by Garry Trinh 2. Chronicles, Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2025-26 3. Mimetics, Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2025-26 4. 2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art 5. Stone Idols, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery 2021

Australian Women Artists The podcast Ep 72 Lily Mae Martin Lily Mae Martin is a remarkable visual artist known for her deeply personal explorations of womanhood, motherhood, and the human condition. Her own strength and resilience in the face of, at times, enormous challenges, is remarkable. She is celebrated for her masterful draughtsmanship, particularly her delicate and detailed cross-hatching using fine liner ink pens, building up thousands upon thousands of tiny lines to produce an incredible tone. After graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2008 and winning the Lionel Gell travelling scholarship, she spent years refining her practice in Berlin and Wales before returning to Australia. Her work has always been predominantly figurative, with a love of traditional portraiture approached in an unconventional way — seeking to capture people outside of the polished, self-conscious way they present themselves to a camera. She was a finalist for the 2016 Rick Amor Drawing Prize, Art Gallery of Ballarat; winner of the 2016 Ursula Hoff Institute Emerging Artist Acquisitive Art Award in the National Works on Paper exhibition, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery; and shortlisted for the 2016 Paul Guest Drawing Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery, Adelaide Perry drawing prize 2017 and the Dobell Drawing Prize 2019. Lily Mae also contributed to The Drawing Board – a four part segment exploring drawing on Radio National, The Arts Program in 2022. Lily Mae (@lilymaemartin) is represented by Scott Livesey Galleries (@scottliveseygalleries) I referred in our conversation to the National Gallery of Victoria ‘Drop-by Drawing’ programme of which Lily Mae was a part. The link is below https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/multimedia/drop-by-drawing-with-lily-mae-martin/ Head to the link in my bio to have a listen to our conversation. Images 1. LMM supplied by artist 2. Orchid Medley 2025 ink on cotton paper 15 x 20 3. Waterloo State Forest 2016 ink on paper 76 x 105 4. Nothing is Untouched (Moorabool) 2024 ink on paper 56 x 76 5. Emerging

Australian Women Artists The podcast Ep 71 Julie Fragar Julie Fragar is one of the country's most compelling painters. For those who are familiar with that name, it could well be because she recently made headlines as the winner of the prestigious 2025 Archibald Prize. What is perhaps not as well known to the general public is that that win marked the 4th time she had been a finalist in that competition. For over two decades, Julie's practice has been described as pushing the intellectual limits of painting. Her works are deeply psychological, and weave together autobiography, historical narratives and intense human experiences. We had a great conversation talking about her childhood in country NSW, her art school experiences, her visual technique which she describes as not "layering," but rather as images "woven" or "knitted" together, where all images exist simultaneously on the canvas, the incredible works she produced after sitting in the public gallery of the Supreme Court and later when she shadowed a gynaecological surgeon and witnessed the visceral reality of the operating theatre and, of course, her 2025 win in the Archibald Prize. Julie Fragar’s work is held in major public collections including the Art Gallery of New South Wales; Art Gallery of South Australia; and the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art. She has been the recipient of major awards and institutional commissions. And Professor Fragar also happens to be Deputy Director (Research) at the Queensland College of Art and Design, Griffith University. Head to the link in my bio to hear our conversation, or search Australian Women Artists wherever you find your podcasts. Images 1. JF, AGNSW, Diana Panuccio 2. Flagship Mother Multiverse (Justene) 2025 oil on canvas, 240 x 180 (Archibald winner 2025) 3. Richard, 2020 oil on canvas 180 x 135 (Archibald finalist) 4. Trust, 2026 oil on canvas 180 x 135 5. Drown in Your Own Ambition, 2021 6. Origin of the World (or One Battle After Another), 2026

Australian Women Artists The podcast Ep 70 Lisa Bale It would probably be fair to say that Lisa Bale sits outside the art establishment. She lives and works remotely on a bush property situated in the hinterland of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Not having formal art training has been no hindrance to an exceptional talent. In fact, it’s probably a big contributing factor to her success. Her works are witty, surprising, and visually arresting takes on modern-day dilemmas. Her extensive career spans nearly four decades and she has deliberately cultivated a distinctive aesthetic that marries meticulous technique with deeply personal, often idiosyncratic subject matter. Her works are held in the permanent collections of prestigious institutions, including the Art Gallery of South Australia, QAGOMA, the University of Queensland Art Museum, Rockhampton Art Gallery, and the private collection of Lord Jeffrey Archer in London. The work is stunning, and I’m honoured that she’s chosen to have a chat on AWA because in nearly 40 years of creativity, Lisa has told me she has never done this sort of focussed and in-depth interview. For over 20 years Lisa has been represented by Philip Bacon Galleries, one of Australia’s leading art galleries. From their website... “Meticulously producing hyper-real imagery, Bale uses oil paint and a deft hand to load dramatic scenes with rich metaphor and illusory turns.” Head to the link in my bio to hear our conversation or search for ‘Australian Women Artists’ wherever you find your podcasts. Images 1. Lisa Bale, 2026, photograph by Kim Guthrie @iphotographstuff 2. Rose Garden, 2008, 53 x 70 cm, oil on canvas Collection: Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) 3. Sacred Heart, 2019, 61 x 80 cm, oil on canvas Private Collection 4. Dig, 2011, 68 x 100 cm, oil on canvas Collection: University of Queensland Art Museum 5. Icebreaker, 2014, 49 x 83 cm, oil on canvas Private Collection 6. Inquisition, 2016, 54 x 80 cm, oil on canvas Collection: Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA)

Australian Women Artists The Podcast Ep 69 Heidi Yardley Heidi Yardley is a Melbourne-born painter whose work occupies a significant space in contemporary Australian art — intimate, psychological, and immediately recognisable. ‘[Heidi] works with found images to create scenes of mysterious temporality. Often painted in faded hues, her artwork is suggestive of a period that could sit somewhere between the 1960’s and 70’s.’ She works with oil paint and charcoal and incredible collaging techniques where she creates anonymous portraits of sexualised and domesticated femininity. Over three decades she has drawn on vintage imagery, cinema, music, and the female experience as inspiration. Heidi has been a finalist in significant prizes including The Archibald Prize, Wynne Prize, Sulman Prize and The Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, has held two artist residencies in New York, and has been listed as one of Australia’s 50 most collectable artists. It was a great broad ranging conversation. We covered her obsession with art at high school and her struggle to get into the painting course she desperately wanted (spoiler: she persisted and got in!), her love of figurative art and having to resist pressures from outside to think and act more conceptually – and her persistence paid dividends again. I loved her description of how she felt when overseas standing in front of paintings she had only seen in books to that point. We talked about her visual language, how she finds titles for her works and ... Nick Cave. Which I’m always up for a chat about. Mood, mystery and the unresolved image. Head to the link in my bio to have a listen. Heidi is represented by Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane (@janmurphygallery) and Nicholas Thompson Gallery, Melbourne (@nicholasthompsongallery) Images 1. HY by Lisa Barmby 2. The masked bride, 2024 oil on canvas 140 x 100 3. The black veil, 2019 charcoal on primed paper 84 x 110 4. The door, 2021 oil on canvas 144 x 116 5. Psychique 2021 oil on canvas 140 x 110

Australian Women Artists The podcast Ep 68 Suzanne Archer Across six decades, Suzanne Archer has forged a singular career in Australian art, marked by independence from curatorial trends and sustained commitment to difficult subjects. From youthful abstraction through immersion in the Australian bush to a fearless confrontation with death and time. Suzanne has won major prizes including the Wynne Prize for landscape and the Dobell Prize for Drawing, and her work is held in significant public collections nationwide. Her constant evolution is fascinating. We discussed many aspects of her career. The origins of her artistic journey, her immigration to Australia in the 1960s and the incredible effect living on the NSW South Coast had on her, how she made a living in those early days from art, residencies in New York and Paris and Zimbabwe and how those experiences taught her to never shut down what is possible, how moving to the country and that sense of space had a profound effect on her and her art. We had this conversation at Nanda Hobbs Gallery in Sydney when her recent exhibition, Manifestation, was showing. Suzanne is represented by Nanda Hobbs, Sydney Images 1. SA in front of a detail of Gorge Country – Wedderburn, 2024 oil on canvas 198 x 408 2. Brown velvet, 2025 oil on canvas, 153 x 153 3. Arty-Fact 2013, cloth bag, collaged embroidery, cardboard, acrylic paint, canvas mat 4. Derangement, 2010, ink, charcoal, pastel on 2 sheets of white paper (winner Dobel Prize) 5. Waratahs Wedderburn, 1994, oil on canvas, 240 x 242

Australian Women Artists The podcast Ep 67 Tracey Deep For over twenty years, Tracey Deep has been transforming forgotten remnants of the natural world—from dried botanicals to recycled organic and industrial materials—into captivating, tactile sculptures. Her art celebrates the regenerative power of the earth through the art of what’s been called intentional imperfection. Today her work spans gallery exhibitions, immersive installations and major public artworks across Australia. Whether delicate and intimate or monumental in scale, her sculptures invite us to slow down and reconnect with the natural world. But I think the best description of Tracey is... a creative adventurer, a biology enthusiast, and magical botanical sculptor. “My passion for working with nature, my love for art has been the inspiration behind where I am today. Mother nature is my teacher, creating floralsculpture installations over decades has been the most inspiring tool in training my eye to assemble unique forms, patterns, shapes & tones together to create “living art”.” Tracey Deep We had a wonderful conversation as, amongst many things, we discussed her creative journey, her fabulous (and random) gathering process, and her devotion to protecting our land and environment. Tracey is represented by Saint Cloche Galleries (@saint_cloche) Head to the link in my bio to hear our conversation or go to wherever you find your podcasts. Images of Tracey and her work were supplied by the artist