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.

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 curator and Michael Reid Beyond program manager Dean Phillips-Andersen dean@michaelreid.com.au

Building on the creative breakthrough of her widely celebrated solo show Understory – as well as her collaboration with fashion brand Nancy Bird, which saw her elegant flannel flowers and other painted botanicals transposed onto textiles.

Moving with painterly gusto between areas of intricate and tightly controlled detail and an overall mood of untamed, impressionistic abundance, Frith’s Tendrils and Tapestries series takes us deeper into the thickets of the bushland covering Eora/Sydney North Head. Sketching in the field before returning to her painting studio, Frith observes and translates the area’s dense botanical interplay, seasonal shifts and the filtered patterns of light and shade cast across the forest floor.

Frith’s paintings can be read less as conventional landscapes than as exuberant, impressionistic fields of pattern-like flora that envelop and transport the viewer. Each work is at once precisely rendered and yet almost verging on abstraction in its overlapping forms and immersive, optically charged, tapestry-like effects.

To discuss works by Louise Frith, please email colinesoria@michaelreid.com.au

The Dyarubbin/Hawkesbury and the Snowy Monaro regions of New South Wales are indelibly etched in Julz Beresford‘s creative psyche and continue to propel her practice. Born in rural New South Wales, the artist reflects that being outdoors has always been at the heart of her existence.

An essential part of Beresford’s process is being present in the landscape, observing natural phenomena that then inform her paintings. Working en plein air, the artist collects gouache studies and drawings that later become the departure point of her studio-made paintings.

Beresford’s intent is for the audience to feel engaged with the energy of the landscapes she paints. Her works are both an impression of landscapes and an embodiment of how it actually feels to be there. Her paintings have a sense of intense energy. Painting alla prima with a vigorous and spirited application, the artist challenges herself to remain in the moment and ‘solve’ the painting as she goes.

Julz Beresford joins the Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin stable of artists following a successful exhibiting career at our Northern Beaches gallery.

For those interested in acquiring, please contact danielsoma@michaelreid.com.au

Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin are pleased to announce the representation of Michelle Gearin, an interdisciplinary artist whose work invites the viewer to transcend physical boundaries and experience a lucid dimension within her ethereal compositions.

Michelle Gearin’s art is inspired by diverse influences such as Shunga, Kama Sutra Sanskrit miniature paintings, and the Symbolist movement of the 19th century. However, her work is not limited to these influences, as her personal narratives and experiences also shape her unique perspective on the world.

Growing up in rural New South Wales and receiving an early diagnosis of Autism, Michelle developed a profound connection to nature and a heightened perception of the nuances of light and movement in her environment. This connection is reflected in her work, which captures the delicate interplay of colour, light, and movement with remarkable insight.

Using oils and watercolours, Michelle creates hybrid mythological creatures that exude a powerful energy. These beings radiate beams of colour from their eyes or genitals during moments of intimacy, representing a yearning for human connection in its purest form.

Michelle Gearin’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including the ‘Female Drivers’ exhibition at the Maitland Regional Art Gallery in 2022. Her work, Prism, consisting of 49 circular panels, was acquired for the gallery’s collection. Michelle has also exhibited alongside Alex Seton at The Lock-Up in Newcastle, where her multimedia work, Double Rainbow, immersed the viewer in the science of optics and the power of the human eye.

For those interested in acquiring, please contact dean@michaelreid.com.au.

This month, Michael Reid Sydney will present our first solo exhibition from Naarm/Melbourne-based Indian-Australian contemporary painter Sid Pattni, who recently joined our stable of represented artists and is currently a finalist in the Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

“I’m interested in how aesthetics shaped under empire can be reclaimed and reconfigured to tell new stories about migration, memory, and identity,” says the London-born, Kenya-raised artist, speaking with Belle magazine in an extensive profile published in its latest issue. “Painting became a way to process the dissonance I felt navigating multiple cultural identities. I return to themes of hybridity, belonging and erasure, referencing historical visual formats not as homage, but as a means of critique and reimagining.”

Works from Pattni’s forthcoming series – which shares its title, The Act of Putting it Back Together, with his Archibald-shortlisted self-portrait – are now available to preview and acquire by request.

To receive a preview catalogue and secure an acquisition prior to the show’s opening, please email danielsoma@michaelreid.com.au