Onlookers

Artist
Chelsea Gustafsson
Dates
30 Jun—25 Jul 2025
Gallery Location
Berlin

One of the bright stars in Michael Reid Murrurundi’s stable of exhibiting artists, Chelsea Gustafsson is making her European debut with a solo exhibition of small-scale, high-impact paintings at Michael Reid Berlin.

“I’m drawn to still life and using objects to tell a story,” says the artist, whose latest series builds on the tremendous creative breakthrough and critical success of her most recent Murrurundi show. “I find objects are perfect as a representational tool and my brain has a relentless tendency to contemplate all the big and little things going on in the world.”

Delighting in the alchemy of objects staged in sculptural arrangements, Gustafsson’s paintings toy with perceptions of scale, perspective and framing, layering pictures within pictures with striking trompe l’oeil effects. There is a nesting-doll quality to these cinematic scenes as she once again casts an array of iconic chairs and salvaged seating as her work’s stars.

But here, the pictorial layering is dialled up to an even more dynamic degree. Discarded packaging and fragmentary pictures are unboxed and seemingly collaged in space, drawing the viewer into endlessly fascinating, illusory worlds in miniature.

To discuss works from this exhibition please contact colinesoria@michaelreid.com.au