Portrait of an Artist

Portrait of an Artist takes as its starting point Michel Lawrence’s photographic series Framed, for which he documented Australian artists in their studios over a ten-year period during the 1980s and 90s, and recently expanded with three new images commissioned specifically for the exhibition. The portraits, many of which are held in the Heide Collection, offer not only a compelling visual record of the individual artists, but also a rare glimpse into their private creative spaces and processes. The photographs are contextualised in the exhibition by artworks of each practitioner, along with examples of their palettes, paints, and other tools of trade. The presence of the studio materials makes the invisible visible, tracing a literal connection between the artist’s hand and the outcomes of their work, inviting viewers to contemplate the act of creation and explore each object’s associations.

Featured artists include: Davida Allen, Del Kathryn Barton, Jon Campbell, Dean Cross, Karla Dickens, Robert Jacks, Inge King, Robert Klippel, Michel Lawrence, Mirka Mora, Sidney Nolan, and John Perceval.