Media and Copyright

Heavens Spot is the work of KEOS, one of Perth’s highly skilled and dynamic – yet cautiously anonymous – graffiti artists.

Following on from AGWA’s late 2021 project 100 Vandals, which featured 100 black book drawings by Western Australian graffiti artists, Heavens Spot welcomes a select painter from this community of artists to leave their mark directly on the walls of AGWAs rooftop gallery.

The Art Gallery of Western Australia is pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Anna Arabindan-Kesson as Senior Research Fellow. This new role will see Arabindan-Kesson contribute to forthcoming exhibitions, publications, programs and research at AGWA, bringing her expertise in examining the impact of colonial histories on the arts, society and the environment.

Opening at AGWA on 24 September 2022, Speech Patterns is an entwined and layered conversation between the work of contemporary artists Nadia Hernández and Jon Campbell. This vibrant exhibition is full of life, poetry and feeling and is comprised of paintings, paste-ups, drawings, posters, banners and flags from across the span of their individual practices.

Both artists mobilise the rhythms, harmonies and dissonances of written and pictorial language to deal with experiences of relocation, questions around identity, class, cultural and national value systems. Within this, they offer their voices both in direct political protest and in celebration and critique of everyday life, values and relationships.

Today, The Art Gallery of Western Australia reveals the inaugural program for their new, major creative and curatorial initiative, the Simon Lee Foundation Institute of Contemporary Asian Art. From Hong Kong to Tokyo to Shanghai to the Persian Gulf – the State Gallery is set to showcase some of the most exciting contemporary Asian artists of today, while simultaneously exploring cultural thinking across Asia and its diaspora communities from 22 July 2022 – 30 July 2023.

Generously supported by a philanthropic partnership with the Simon Lee Foundation, SLF ICAA is a five-year-project, set to strengthen connections with Asia and its artists by exhibiting, collecting, and fostering the exchange of art and ideas throughout Western Australia and the wider region.

The Art Gallery of Western Australia reveals the Simon Lee Foundation Institute of Contemporary Asian Art – a major new philanthropic partnership showcasing some of the most exciting, new and notable, contemporary Asian artists of today.

Presented in celebration with SLF ICAA’s full program announcement on 22 July, two major new commissions will lead the year-round program, with a politically charged feminist work by Thai performance artist Kawita Vatanajyankur and technologist Pat Pataranutaporn. Along with a new installation by one of the most exciting artists to emerge out of Hong Kong in the past decade, Wong Ping.

This exhibition presents documentation of the multi-disciplinary projects undertaken by Perth-based art collective Media-Space across its life-span, 1981-1986.

Curated by Julian Goddard and founding member Paul Thomas, it sheds light on a period in Western Australian art when artists such as Judy Chambers, Anne Graham, Jeff Jones, Will Kohlen, Lindsay Parkhill, Neil Sullivan, Paul Thomas and Allan Vizents dissected the social and political role of art to examine, amongst other issues, the colonial power structures that shaped life in this state.

The Art Gallery of Western Australia is delighted to announce the winner of the 2022 Tom Malone Prize for Australian glass artists is, Tim Edwards for his work Ellipse #8.

Ellipse #8 was selected as the winning piece from a competitive short list of fifteen works by Australian artists including: Ruth Allen (VIC); Chick Butcher (NSW); Matthew Curtis (NSW); Tim Edwards (SA); Wendy Fairclough (SA); Laurie Fossier-Mills (WA); Brenden Scott French (SA); Marcel Hoogstad Hay (SA); Rita Kellaway (SA); Gerry King (SA); Peter Kovacsy (WA); Nick Mount (SA); Jessica Murtagh (SA); Emma Varga (NSW); and Janice Vitkovsky (SA).

Contemporary artworks on show as part of the prestigious national Tom Malone glass Prize – celebrating 20 years at AGWA

Ahead of the Tom Malone Prize exhibition opening on 3 June, The Art Gallery of Western Australia has announced the fifteen shortlisted artists competing for Australia’s richest prize in glass; an annual acquisitive prize for Australian glass artists.

The 2022 exhibition will feature the works of Ruth Allen (VIC); Chick Butcher (NSW); Matthew Curtis (NSW); Tim Edwards (SA); Wendy Fairclough (SA); Laurie Fossier-Mills (WA); Brenden Scott French (SA); Marcel Hoogstad Hay (SA); Rita Kellaway (SA); Gerry King (SA); Peter Kovacsy (WA); Nick Mount (SA); Jessica Murtagh (SA); Emma Varga (NSW); and Janice Vitkovsky (SA).

Every wall, every floor, every channel.

In an Australian State Gallery first, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art takes the entire stage at AGWA, during BlakLight, a month-long program celebrating the diversity of First Nations art and culture.

BlakLight will see every gallery space at AGWA dedicated to Australia's most significant contemporary art form – showcasing the diversity and complexity of First Nations art. Accompanying this gallery-wide focus is an event program sparking conversation about cultural identities and exploring the notion of community through visual art, music, talks and more. Professional development workshops for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists based in Perth also feature in the program.