Media and Copyright

Opening today at The Art Gallery of Western Australia, dis/possession displays works drawn entirely from the State Art Collection, centring on the juxtaposition of two significant works by Australian artists: Hans Heysen’s Droving into the light and Mervyn Street’s Bull ride.

Painted approximately 100 years apart, each offers a view of rural Australia that reflects the preoccupations of the artist at the time of the work's production. Street, a Gooniyandi artist from Fitzroy Crossing, worked as a stockman at a time when the impact of the pastoral movement was being fully felt by Western Australian Kimberley Indigenous communities. German-born Heysen lived and worked in the Adelaide Hills during an era in which Australia as a young nation continued to be positioned as a locale of opportunity for colonisation.

Premiering at The Art Gallery of Western Australia in a national first, Singapore’s culinary artist and multi-award-winning dessert chef, Janice Wong, will unveil her otherworldly edible art at the Pure Imagination 2022 AGWA Foundation Gala Event.

Leading an eponymous brand which boasts leading dessert bars in Asia, a confectionary line, and a multitude of creative pursuits which have seen Janice’s comestible art exhibited across the world, the partnership signals AGWA’s ambition to bring boundary-pushing international artists to Perth.

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.

Fusing eclectic art with contemporary fashion and homewares through exclusive products and design collaborations from local and globally renowned brands, The Art Gallery of Western Australia has launched the AGWA Design Store, breathing new life into its retail offering.

With product curation led by Perth design and fashion retail aficionados Leith Groves and Rob Marshall, the AGWA Design Store is a visual delight, offering customers an always surprising mix of playful and beautiful pieces, including exclusive designer collaborations, international streetwear, accessories, ceramics, homewares, books, children’s clothing and AGWA merchandise.

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).

WA's talented young artists are celebrated in this yearly showcase, gauging the pulse of young people who will influence, impact and shape the world we live in.

This year’s exhibition celebrates 30 years of Pulse at The Art Gallery of Western Australia. In another landmark celebration, 2022 sees The West Australian come on board as the exhibition's major sponsor and a renaming to The West Australian Pulse.

This year’s exhibition features 49 works by 2021 Year 12 Visual Arts graduates from 32 schools across WA, including entries from Lesmurdie Senior High School, School of Isolated and Distance Education, Broome Senior High School, Applecross Senior High School, Trinity College, Kennedy Baptist College, Ursula Frayne Catholic College and Perth College.

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.