Penumbra was Australian photographer Scott Perkins’ first exhibition at Michael Reid Sydney, debuting the artist’s finely distilled employment of abstract photography. Penumbra followed a series of successful exhibitions in New Zealand and was the first opportunity for Australian collectors to engage with Perkins’ reanimated treatment of the photographic craft.

Presented in three distinct modes, Scott Perkins’ images of unidentified landscapes have been captured in state of balance, occupying a space between light and dark. Brooding, atmospheric and technically imposing, Scott Perkins’ images thread a trio of presentation methods that add a dynamic viewing experience to each work of art. 

In this exhibition, viewers were treated to impeccably presented lightbox photographs of bespoke design that transform their surrounding spaces. The artist’s use of Hanhnemule metallic paper add a complementary lustre to the surface of his mysterious still photograph images.

Following a two year hiatus, Sydney Contemporary returned in 2022 and it was Tamara Dean who represented Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin.

Palace of Dreams, a project over twelve months in the making, made it’s worldwide debut at the art fair, seeing an audience of over 150,000 people across five days. In this series, Dean disorientates her subjects using a purpose built underwater studio. With Palace of Dreams Tamara Dean successfully choreographs a dreamlike world, illustrated across eight gravity defying subjects.

John Honeywill’s paintings are often described as realist. He removes objects from their context and presents them to us isolated, commanding in their silence. Their intriguing qualities come not from their suggested narrative, but of the stark sense of light, colour and luminosity they convey. Stripped of all story-telling levers, Honeywill offers his viewers what might be understood as a pure distillation of presence. 

Opening on Thursday 25th of August, John Honeywill’s Michael Reid Sydney exhibition assembled twenty-six new paintings.

Showing in the upstairs gallery at Michael Reid Sydney, Flowers gathered eight new paintings by Kaspar Kägi; each demonstrating the rising artist’s original and refreshing sensibility. Kägi’s graphic, yet painterly visual language wedded perfectly with his botanical images.

Deme ngagurr apirri nimbi kunikuni yedityerrmusye werrme wurity wadi kanbi yawul. Wani pek ngugnuni syaw palamundi adawayiir wuyse warrgadi walipan. Awapurrpurrk ngagurr kana ngarimbirr fi me tyat deme ngangi nginin deme apirri nimbi. Awa mabud filmi yedi asa purrpurrk werrme wurity.

Our hands long ago; old people used to make painting, bark painting, fish net, clapping sticks, headbands, dillybags; we teach our younger generations what our old people taught us. Many hands we join as one community.

– Regina Pilawuk Wilson

Ever since Regina Pilawuk Wilson’s golden yellow Syaw (fishnet) won the General Painting Award at the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards in 2003, her elegantly structured paintings have quietly but unequivocally fixed her name on the contemporary art map.

Regina Pilawuk Wilson is now Australia’s most senior contemporary female Aboriginal artist, and is one at the height of her creative powers. Wilson is the matriarch of her community and is a softly spoken, major force in the Australian art world today. Her relevance and the power of her work only continue to grow; influence that is affirmed by the artist’s participation in two major art museum exhibitions in the next 12 months.

Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin is honoured to work with Regina Wilson and her Community, which has for two decades produced significant and bright creative outcomes. Deme Ngayi Kinyi was Regina Pilawuk Wilson’s largest solo exhibition with Michael Reid Sydney, and is the first to exhibit on our Chippendale gallery premises.

In his 2022 exhibition Wondering About Things – his first shown at Michael Reid Sydney’s Chippendale space – Marc Etherington presented a selection of new paintings and sculptures direct from his Canadian studio. Self taught and born in Sydney’s south, Marc Etherington spent his formative years developing a strong following within the Sydney art community while fostering his emerging painting career. Etherington’s naive application and heightened imagination have been integral in propelling the artists career, who is presently recognised as one of Australia’s most unique and celebrated living artist’s.

Marc Etherington’s Michael Reid Sydney exhibition was a medley of the artist’s latest works that traversed pop culture, Canadian folklore and snippets of the artist’s personal adventures.

In April 2022 Dr Christian Thompson AO Exhibited his latest collection of artworks at Michael Reid Sydney. Encompassing performative photography and a new video work, the title of the exhibition took its name from Thompson’s new and unreleased photograph, Being Human Human Being. Boasting a softer palette of lavender and pastel yellow, Being Human Human Being joined a growing collection of Thompson’s arresting and enigmatic ‘Flower Wall’ works.