Lucy Vader’s upcoming exhibition, ‘A Grand Tour,’ was inspired by a remarkable academic find – an image of Australia’s beloved Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo in a book residing in the Vatican, produced between 1241 and 1248.

The discovery sparked a desire to paint these birds, extrapolating a single bird being taken on a grand tour, in what could either be the Australian bush, or other unknown lands. In seven vibrant paintings, Vader captures the larrikin playfulness of these iconic Australian characters.

‘Whimsical and intense, the Cockatoo paintings are semi en plein air and semi-imagined. I wanted to be free in capturing the motion of the soaring or tumbling free flight of these birds, as well as their characters as best I could.

The meeting of a Northern Hemisphere animal, the deer, highlights the character difference between Australia and Europe: one demure, gracious, beautiful, and composed; the other loud, unashamed, a bit silly, and bearing the hallmarks of days in the southern sun. Straya, meet Europe.’

Lucy Vader

2022 represents a milestone for Michael Reid – for ten years we have championed the very best Australian artists from the world stage of contemporary art, Berlin.

Since our inaugural German showing, Murr-ma* uncovering Aboriginal & Australian contemporary art at Halle Am Wasser in 2012, to Dekade at the close of 2022, we have presented over 90 exhibitions to the German public. Using Berlin as a base, we have toured Indigenous Art and Contemporary Australian photography across Europe. We have celebrated our nation’s artists at exhibitions encompassing embassies, at Art Fair Booths in lofty palaces and at cultural festivals across the continent.

While this exhibition includes two artists whose work we first brought to Berlin in 2012 at Murr-ma, the inimitable Nici Cumpston OAM and Dr Christian Thompson AO, it is not a nostalgic trip down memory lane. Instead, we are presenting the best of contemporary First Nations art today. It celebrates the diversity of contemporary artistic expression that lives and breathes in Australia and looks to the next ten years of exhibitions, fairs and festivals.

Thank you to the artists that have entrusted us with their work along the way, to the collectors who have supported the gallery, and to the staff who have worked tirelessly to bring them together.

Here’s to the Dekade to come.

In April 2022 Michael Reid Berlin was delighted to welcome Andrea Huelin to the German capital for her latest collection of paintings, Assembling Memory.

The Cairns-based painter is best known for her vibrant still life paintings of fruit, glassware and everyday household items. In Assembling Memory, Huelin traced her own German lineage through a series of paintings awash with native Australian fauna and inherited tableware, including several pieces bearing the distinctive burnt palettes of the GDR.