The next presentation in the upstairs gallery at Michael Reid Sydney will be our first solo exhibition from Eora/Sydney-based painter Kathy Liu, who previously dazzled audiences as one of the stars of our annual survey show Painting Now.

“My approach is highly intuitive,” says Liu, speaking with Belle magazine for a profile published in the lead-up to Painting Now. “I begin a painting without a pre-set concept, letting the colours and shapes emerge. Sometimes, it feels like I’m there to help the artworks find their own storylines.”

This open-ended process makes the canvas a conduit for fabulous adventures through imaginative worlds, inviting delightfully unexpected turns as amorphous pools begin to coalesce and playfully enigmatic, inchoate figures appear through diaphanous wafts of colour.

“It reflects my subconscious mind, bringing up narratives from my past life that I have almost forgotten,” says Liu. “Lost memories of childhood, my love of mythology, some distant lines of poetry, all of these are unburied through my work.” Like hazy memories or half-remembered dreams, the resulting works feel alive with emotion, poeticism, a sense of magic and effervescent movement.

From a smattering of stars and harlequin prints to crescent moons and cuddly creatures, figurative elements bubble up through ethereal, overlapping layers, recalling a sense of childlike innocence and unfettered imagination. But, as with the circus paintings of Chagall and Picasso – both cited by the artist as influences – there could be a tinge of melancholy or menace inside these dreamy scenes.

The ephemerality of childhood amusements is echoed by a gossamer quality that sees fragmentary images on the cusp of emerging or just fading away – an ambiguity that rhymes with Liu’s fluid approach and the serendipitous possibilities of her abstract practice.

After her celebrated showing in a stellar run of group exhibitions and her solo debut, Moon Phases, at Michael Reid Murrurundi, Liu’s upcoming presentation will be a chance for collectors to discover work from an exciting talent at a pivotal moment in her career.

For all enquiries, please contact dean@michaelreid.com.au

Tamara Dean’s magnificent entanglements of human and natural worlds reach a wild crescendo with her operatic new series of lushly romantic, hyper-floral photographs, The Flower Duet – a landmark body of work in which lithe figures plunge through prismatic thresholds in a dazzling pas de deux with camellias, roses and other blooms.

While Dean’s fecund fantasias might at first appear like digitally conjured dreamscapes, they are, in fact, an extraordinary feat of practical effects, with the artist immersing and lensing her subjects in actual gardens and elaborately constructed underwater sets.

To receive further information about works in this exhibition, please contact dean@michaelreid.com.au

Across February, Vicki Yatjiki Cullinan’s deeply personal, visually epic stories of Country will unfold in a dynamic, colour-soaked display in the upstairs exhibition space at Michael Reid Sydney, when her solo exhibition Kuṉpu – Strength officially opens from Thursday February 7.

Working at Iwantja Arts – the Indigenous-owned and -governed art centre in the rocky desert country of Indulkana on the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytatjara Lands (APY Lands), the Yankunytjatjara artist is at the forefront of one of the most exuberant, innovative and globally celebrated movements in contemporary painting.

Kuṉpu – Strength sees five new paintings grace the gallery walls and coincides with Cullinan’s inclusion in Art Collector magazine’s annual 50 Things issue. Paintings on view introduce a refreshing spectrum of warm colours into the artist’s compositions.

Kuṉpu – Strength will preview by appointment at Michael Reid Sydney before opening officially on Thursday  February 7, 2025. To receive further information about works of art exhibiting in this exhibition, please contact danielsoma@michaelreid.com.au

In January, Michael Reid Sydney will exhibit 20 significant Australian photographs – across two folios of ten masterworks each – bringing together iconic artworks by Australia’s most celebrated 20th-century photographers, spanning six decades of cultural and artistic evolution.

These two master suites of ten photographs each capture the nation’s diverse creative vision and much of our core photographic history. From Olive Cotton’s elegant Teacup Ballet to Mervyn Bishop’s powerful portrayal of Indigenous land rights and Greg Weight’s portrait of Emily Kame Kngwarreye, these images reflect Australia’s ever-changing social and environmental narrative.

Showcasing masterful storytelling and enduring legacies, the two folios are cornerstones of Australian photography.

For further information about this exhibition please contact colinesoria@michaelreid.com.au

Michael Reid Sydney will commence the calendar year with a presentation of Trent Parke’s Species series. Species made its Australian debut with a selection of photographs at Sydney Contemporary 2024. In January, we will present a more comprehensive collection draw from this technically astounding photographic series.

Photographs from Species have already garnered international acclaim after being shown at Milan Design Week in a touring exhibition specially commissioned by Magnum Photos and Veuve Clicquot. A centrepiece of the series was selected for Australia’s most prestigious photo-based media award, the William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize.

Captured through an extraordinary feat of endurance and technical wizardry, Species is a thrilling synthesis of Parke’s exceptional skill and aesthetic sensibilities. “Shooting directly into the sun, with what could be considered a telescope, is a challenge in itself,” says the artist, who lensed his subjects from a distance of 700 metres. “It was 1/2000th of a second, but three months in the making.”

Parke sees Species as a meeting of two “symbols of universal energy” – the sun and the ocean melting together in a sumptuous pool of colour.

Photographs from this exhibition can be viewed at Michael Reid Sydney. To discuss and acquisition, please email danielsoma@michaelreid.com.au

This month, Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin will present the latest work by leading Australian contemporary artist Catherine Nelson, who brilliantly recasts digital tools as a paintbrush for conjuring wildly immersive, impossible landscapes.

“From her studio in France, Nelson’s meditation on the Australian landscape carries the weight of distance, nostalgic romanticism, and the clarity of perspective that such remove can provide,” notes art adviser and writer Sarah Hetherington in the catalogue essay accompanying Nelson’s extraordinary new pair of works, Riverbound I and II.

Each image is a painstaking, labour-intensive digital construction, where every element is composed of dozens of photographs, creating what Nelson refers to as “distortion on distortion” or a type of hyper-collaging. Nelson’s intention is to capture “a more honest image that reflects my experience and emotional response to this staggeringly beautiful and unique part of the world.” Further, Riverbound marks a significant departure from Nelson’s macro/micro spherical previous series of works. Now the viewer is positioned within the scene rather than observing from afar.

Riverbound I and II reject the traditional single-point perspective of photography and are particularly striking in their temporal and spatial complexity. Instead, the images offer something more akin to the way memory works – an immersive, multi-layered experience. The tilted plane of the river becomes a mirror, the space between the sky and its reflection in the water is collapsed. Nelson describes this as “an absence of separation,” a unity that also speaks to an ecological interconnectedness.

For further information please email dean@michaelreid.com.au.

One of the most beloved names in our Newport Gallery stable, Emily Gordon will present her first solo presentation at Michael Reid Sydney in December. This special release of five new paintings arrives after a succession of sell–out shows and also follows the artist’s shortlisting in this year’s Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize.

Celebrating the titular neighbourhood’s densely layered streetscapes, The Paddington Project sees Gordon’s sweeping and delightfully detailed vistas expressed on her largest surfaces to date.

“I wanted to delve into a more intimate understanding of the distinctively local” says the artist, who beautifully captures the eclectic jumble of Victorian rooftops and gelato-toned terraces that spill over hilly topography. In this this quintessentially Sydney suburb of Paddington, Gordon has found the perfect subject to take her practice to a newly immersive scope.

Works of art in this exhibition are currently available to preview by appointment. Our exhibition will open to the public on Thursday November 28. To discuss an acquisition or to arrange a viewing appointment ahead of the exhibition opening, please email willkollmorgen@michaelreid.com.au

For our final major exhibition of 2024, Michael Reid Sydney will present the first solo exhibition from Dyarubbin/Hawksbury–based contemporary painter Julz Beresford since she was inducted into the gallery’s stable of artists. A Journey To The Heart will form a fabulous and fitting capstone to Michael Reid Sydney’s 2024 exhibition program, which commenced in January with Beresford’s widely celebrated show, Breathe Deeply.

Reflecting on her lifelong affinity for the Hawksbury region of New South Wales, the moody, atmospheric and monumental landscapes of Breathe Deeply were an immediate sell-out success, establishing Beresford as a rising art star whose work is closely watched and coveted in Australia and abroad.

In her newest exhibition, Julz Beresford explores changing light over the Hawksbury River, treating audiences to her exquisite renderings of dusk and dawn. Beresford’s paintings are awash with Romantic sensibilities, sending the viewer on a journey through glassy, rippling waterways that snake through tangles of bush and tumbling sandstone.

Motivated collectors were quick to acquire artworks from this exhibition at Sydney Contemporary 2024, most while still drying in the artist’s studio. Those seeking to acquire Beresford’s work are encouraged to contact danielsoma@michaelreid.com.au now, for access to and information about the artists first Regional Gallery exhibition taking place at The Basil Sellers Art Centre in March 2025.

Six leading contemporary painters have now joined forces at Michael Reid Sydney to present their spectacular new work in the fourth edition of Painting Now.

Our annual group show spotlights an exciting school of established artists whose practice expands the creative possibilities of art’s most storied medium and pushes it into optically charged, technically dazzling and conceptually daring terrain. Invited to exhibit in Painting Now by curator and Michael Reid Beyond program manager Dean Phillips-Andersen, our incredible class of 2024 features Darren Wardle, Caroline Walls, Kathy Liu, Ben Mazey, Maggie Brink and Andrew Sullivan.

The success of so many Painting Now alumni reflects the program’s aim to identify established talents at a moment of creative breakthrough and present their work just as it ascends to a new level of collectability and acclaim. All paintings from this year’s show have arrived at the gallery and can be previewed and acquired by request.

For enquiries, please email dean@michaelreid.com.au