Five Walls in September

 Exhibitions to October 3

1/119 Hopkins Street, Footscray

https://fivewalls.com.au

Louise Blyton / When Afternoon comes

Installation view during the opening. 

Moon Sugar, 2026, acrylic on linen, 42 x 30 cm.

'Rather than attempting to capture a particular moment, Blyton’s works remain close to the experience of noticing. Their quiet geometry, considered surfaces and subtle interplay of light and shadow invite a slower form of looking, where perception becomes attuned to small changes and familiar things are encountered anew.' Five Walls Gallery website.

Project Spaces

Peter Brooke / Hot Minute

Dawn, 2026, acrylic on linen, 76 x 61 cm.

L-R: Solstice, Harvest and Mid-morning,
all acrylic on linen, 2026.

'Hot Minute forms part of an ongoing investigation into colour as a relational, spatial, and perceptual phenomenon.' Five Walls Gallery website.

Irene Barberis / Architectonics 22: Radiant Notation (A Performative Drawing)

Performative drawing in process.

Performative drawing in process.

Irene Barberis at work

'Architectonics 20: Radiant Notation proposes an original system of visual notation in which the black grid functions as both architectural framework and choreographic score. In dialogue with the spatial pathways of Feuillet notation (c-1700), the measured intervals of musical composition and Sol LeWitt’s instruction-based systems, these works establish potential conditions through which movement is imagined, organised and reconfigured.' Five Walls Gallery website.

Amarie Bergman / hifi: no. 2 

Installation view.

'Because the site is responded and redefined through simplicity of non-objective work, then some unusual things happen, including a synchronous space-time and a poetic streamlining.' Five Walls Gallery website.

Selected exhibition images

Louise Blyton

Introducing 'Artist Interviews' a series of interviews with established artists on what keeps them going and what are some of the highs and lows of their careers.

Louise Blyton in her studio.

Thank you Louise for agreeing to do this. Tell us a bit about your practice and you, the artist, that you are comfortable to share.

I’m a Melbourne based artist that works in handcrafted works occupying a space between painting and sculpture. I find significance in the ordinary and the ephemeral and focus mainly on the relationship between light, shadow and colour. I tend to look at my work as objects rather than painting/sculpture.

I am an alumnus of the Factory 49 Paris Residency, Paris, France, Point B Studio Residency, New York, NY, and Redgate Studio Residency, Beijing, China and have exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions around the world.

Installation images of When Afternoon Arrives,
solo exhibition, Louise Blyton, currently on view at Five Walls Gallery, Melbourne.

What keeps you Going? (Given that ongoing challenges, it seems, have affected the artworld over recent years.)

I think, ultimately, it’s curiosity. I still get excited by the simple act of making something and not quite knowing where it will lead. There are always those small moments in the studio when something unexpectedly works—or even when it doesn’t, but sends you off in a completely different direction. That keeps me coming back. Some days you're swinging on a star and the next you can be hit by a cul-de-sac!

The art world has certainly had its challenges in recent years, but I’ve never really made work because the circumstances around it were easy. I make because I have to, and because I genuinely enjoy it. There is something very satisfying about disappearing into the studio for days, solving a problem, moving things around, getting it wrong, starting again, and occasionally surprising myself.

My practice has become increasingly about looking closely at the things around me—light, shadows, circles, colour, the accidental beauty of something ordinary. I like the idea that a work can begin with something very small and simple and slowly become something else.

Perhaps what keeps me going is that sense of possibility. There is always another idea waiting around the corner, another thing I want to try. And as long as I’m still curious about what might happen if I put one thing next to another, I will always keep making.

Installation view of Mulooning,
solo exhibition, Louise Blyton, Five Walls Gallery, Melbourne, 2025.

What is a personal achievement for you that you would like to share?

I think one of my biggest achievements is simply that I’ve managed to keep making art for all these years. It sounds rather ordinary, but it isn’t. There have been plenty of moments when it would have been easier to stop, or to do something else, but somehow I’ve always found my way back to the studio.

There have been wonderful exhibitions, opportunities and moments of recognition along the way, of course, but the real high for me is having a life where I can wake up and think, I wonder what will happen if I try this? To still have that feeling after all these years feels like quite an achievement.

And perhaps even better than that is when a work leaves the studio and someone connects with it in a way I never expected. That is always a delight.

Pleasure and Toil, 2025, acrylic on linen, 42 x 50 x 10 cm.
4th Australian Biennale of Reductive Art (ABORA 4) Five Walls Gallery, 2025.

Conversely, art is not a constant rosy path. What is a challenging experience you have had in art and how did you come to terms with it?

There have been some lows. Probably the hardest have been the times when you put an enormous amount of yourself into an exhibition or a body of work, only to have it met with very little interest or response. It can be surprisingly brutal when something that feels so important to you simply doesn’t connect in the way you hoped.

There have also been disappointments, opportunities that disappeared, and the occasional feeling of being overlooked. I think every artist experiences some version of that, and it can be difficult not to take it personally.

But perhaps the worst part is the self-doubt that can creep in afterwards. You start wondering whether you’re doing the right thing at all. I've learnt that those moments pass, and that the best thing I can usually do is go back to the studio and make something.

In the end, the work has to matter to me first. Everything else is a bonus.

Installation view of All the Birds are Singing,
solo exhibition, Louise Blyton, Joshua Liner Gallery , New York, 2019.

Finally, how do you think the art world and/or the artists life could be improved? For example, many artists work multiple jobs, and an artist often has to wear many ‘hats’.

I’d love to see more people feel comfortable in the art world. Sometimes the language around art can make it feel complicated or as though you need to know something before you’re allowed to have an opinion. I don’t think you do.

Looking at art should be something everyone can enjoy. You can like something, dislike something, wonder about it, laugh at it or simply enjoy looking at it. I’d love to see more opportunities for people to engage with visual art without feeling intimidated by it.

I think the art world would be a much happier place if more of the general public felt that it belonged to them too. Art is made for looking at, thinking about and enjoying — and everyone should feel welcome to do that. Artist's love to share and it could be improved more if there was a larger audience in Australia.


Thank you Louise for being the first interviewee!

Louise and I co-curated the 6th international biennale of non objective art,
Que des femmes/Only women, Melbourne virtual satellite in 2021.

Strata

Richeldis Fine Art
Barcelona
August, 2026

Mon - Fri 10 - 8pm By Appointment
Calle Sant Pere Mes Baix 64, Barcelona, 08003

https://www.richeldisfineart.com/

L: Ane Henriksen, textile; R: Marea Hildebrand, ceramics.

Spanning textiles, painting, sculpture and ceramics, the exhibition features:

Ane Henriksen (b. 1951, Denmark), Emma Zhang (b. 1982, Wuhan, China), Terri Brooks (b. 1958, Australia), Dakyo Oh (b. 1991, Busan, South Korea), Rhian Jones (b. 1991, Wales) and Marea Hildebrand (b. 1989, Switzerland).

L: Emma Zhang, painting; R: Rhian Jones, ceramic.

'Six Intergenerational Women Artists in Dialogue with Materiality, Landscape and Reduction. Borrowed from archaeology and geology, the title "Strata" refers to the successive layers through which landscapes, objects and histories are formed and understood. Across painting, textile, sculpture and ceramics, each artist approaches material as a site of discovery rather than description. Whether working with earth, paper, pigment, clay or fibre, their practices reveal meaning through sustained acts of making, where reduction, repetition and excavation become ways of seeing as much as methods of production. Together, these six artists remind us that the deepest understanding is rarely immediate—it is uncovered, layer by layer.' Richeldis Fine Art.

Terri Brooks, painting; Rhian Jones, ceramics.

Dakyo Oh

Emma Zhang

Marea Hildebrand

Terri Brooks

Photography by Francisco Nogueira.

The Painter's Eye

The Painter’s Eye: Form & Origin

Nicholas Thompson Gallery

155 Langridge Street

Collingwood 

To August 29

https://www.nicholasthompsongallery.com.au/

Curated by Antionia Sellbach

Artists: Yuriyal Bridgeman, Raymond Carter, Virginia Cuppaidge, Janet Dawson, Elyss McCleary, Kerrie Poliness, Julia Powles, Steven Rendall, Antonia Sellbach, Udo Sellbach, Madeline Simm, Mark Wingrave

Selected images:

Yuriyal Bridgeman

L: Chief, 2025, oil based enamel on woven pit-pit (cane), 192 x 66 cm approx.

R: Watermelon, 2025, oil based enamel on woven pit-pit (cane), 192 x 66 cm approx.

Yuriyal Bridgeman is represented by Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane.

Antonia Sellbach

Unstable Object #37, 2019-26, acrylic on linen, 141 x 114 cm.

The Painter’s Eye: Form & Origin is a multigenerational group exhibition of abstract paintings curated by Antonia Sellbach including two works by her father, Udo Sellbach, from the late 1960s.

Mark Wingrave

L to R: The Light, the Dark, 2026; The Night was Day, 2026;

The Day was Night, 2026. Each: Oil on linen, 46 x 35 cm.

Julia Powles

Yours and mine, 2026, synthetic polymer paint, wool, 193 x 151 cm.

Julia Powles is represented by Blockprojects Gallery, Naarm/Melbourne.

‘The Painter’s Eye: Form and Origin explores how abstraction is constantly in relationship with time and seriality. If we are to look at abstraction on a temporal spectrum for a moment, with say, abstraction at the start of a time-line and figuration occurring towards the end (only one of many possible ways to think about abstraction), we might ask: how and at which point, do the artists in this show engage with shape, colour and form? As an origin point that exists (before figuration? before narrative? before meaning?), or as a backward' motion, ‘abstracting’ recognisable objects of the lived world, a return of sorts. Perhaps there is a crossing back and forth between these temporal states... abstraction operating as a time-traveller / a verb / a temporal process that defies linearity or conventional western notions of time. Each of the artists in the group exhibition have their own unique ways of working with abstraction, and have built relationships with colour and form in their practice over time. In this exhibit colour and form become a language that dances in and around thought, meaning and lived experience.’ Antonia Sellbach, 2026.

Udo Sellbach

City in flames, c1967, acrylic on linen, 152 x 122 cm.

Raymond Carter

Irregular Polygon 6, 2023, acrylic on canvas on pentagonal stretcher, 52.5 x 61 cm.

Abstraction does appear to be a universal visual expression in art that is not tied to time. A more holistic expression, perhaps, than pure figuration, especially when you consider the entirety of human heritage.

Robyn Burgess

Paradox
To August 8
Stephen McLaughlan Gallery
Level 8 Room 16 The Nicholas Building
37 Swanston Street, Melbourne.

https://stephenmclaughlangallery.com.au/

Crater, Tower Hill, 2025-26, oil, wax and ground pigment on canvas, 180 x 140 cm.

Crater 1(study) and Crater 2 (study), 2025-26,
oil, wax and dry ground pigment on canvas, each 33 x 25 cm.

1000 years, 2024-26,
oil, wax, ink and dry ground pigment on canvas, 43 x 23 cm.

L: Song of Myself (study), 2026, oil,
wax and ground pigment on canvas, 34 x 26 cm.
R: Yellow 1 (study), Yellow 2 (study), 2026,
oil and resin on canvas, each 15 x 13 cm.

Empty Studio, 2026, oil on canvas, 33.9 x 28 cm.

Looking for Lizzie, 2025-26
oil, acrylic, pencil and resin on canvas, 43 x 33 cm.

Robyn Burgess recent show at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery features two large works and smaller studies alongside varied small painting experiments. Landscape, travels, and questionings, perhaps, are referenced throughout the mostly abstracted works. All are beautifully painted. Some of the small studies have a profound presence including Empty Studio, 2026. Robyn has mastered her technique with dripples and bits unstated in all the right places. The texture needs to be seen to truly appreciate the works and the small paintings with resin have a wonderful fluid glass like finish. The technical language is all about painting’s long history, with small work titles mentioning revisiting both Velasquez and Vermeer.

Burgess exhibited at Helen Gory Gallery for twenty years before moving to Tacit Art. Both Galleries are now closed. She holds a Master of Fine Art from Monash University and has worked extensively as a university lecturer, primarily at La Trobe University, an examiner, and has been selected as a finalist in numerous leading art prizes including the Robert Jacks Drawing Prize and the Paul Guest Drawing Prize. Her work is held in public and private collections including Art Bank and the Bendigo Art Gallery. In 2004 she undertook a project commission for the façade of the Visual Arts Centre, Bendigo. This is her first exhibition at Stephen McLaughlan Gallery Melbourne.

Five Walls in July

Exhibitions to July 25

1/119 Hopkins Street, Footscray

https://fivewalls.com.au

Soft Geometries: Britt Salt, Sara Lindsay, Shannon Slee, Tia Ansell

Soft Geometries, Brit Salt, Holding Tension, 2026.

'Soft Geometries brings together four Melbourne-based artists whose practices expand the language of geometric abstraction through textile processes. Working across weaving, stitching, embroidery and textile-based construction, Britt Salt, Shannon Slee, Sara Lindsay and Tia Ansell demonstrate that geometry is not confined to the traditions of painting or formal abstraction ...' excerpt, Five Walls Gallery Website.

Selected works:

Britt Salt, Neither-Nor, 2021, woven wool and cotton,
framed in stained timber with museum glass, 95 x 84 cm.

Shannon Slee, Geranium Rag Painting, 2024, woven spun wool,
pigment, ‘femboss’ rags, linen warp, framed in timber, 60 x 33 cm.

Sara Lindsay, Gingham Revisited: White Cross, 2024,
woven cotton, 22 x 23 cm.

Tia Ansell, Sam, 2025, acrylic on cotton and linen weaving,
framed in aluminium 33 x 22 x 5 cm.

Project Spaces

Daniel John Pilkington: Iconicities

'...When the intention to signify is itself written into the process of material production, or the process of production is written into the text, the resulting poem, or work of art, could be considered ‘iconic’. Iconicities explores this idea through a series of visual poems in which language is treated not simply as a transparent vehicle for meaning, but as a material, spatial, and physical form... Daniel John Pilkington, excerpt, Five Walls Gallery Website.

Selected works:

Alphabet Rod, 2023, Bronze, 100 x 3 x 3 cm.

Iconicity 3, 2021, Letterpress Embossing, 42 x 36 cm, Edition of 5.

Tina Douglas: Trying to Touch the Grass

'Trying to Touch the Grass takes its title from internet vernacular’s dismissive command — go outside, reconnect with reality — and asks why that has become so difficult, and what it costs us that it has.' Tina Douglas, excerpt, Five Walls Gallery Website.

Installation view of multiple mixed media works on paper, 2012-2026.

Installation view, R: mirrorcell - trying to touch the grass 2026,
mirror tiles, timber, cardboard, sound, media player,
speaker, 60 x 60 x 200 cm audio 33:58 min.

Mark Wingrave: Negative Positive

The Negative Positive by Mark Wingrave presents a series of paintings developed from a recent residency in Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia. While there he travelled through Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan ..' Mark Wingrave 2026, excerpt, Five Walls Gallery Website.

The Night was Day, 2026, oil on linen, 45 x 35 cm.

Journey to Central Asia (WIP), 2026, Artist's Book,
water colour and crayon on Arches paper 98 x 30cm.

Visiting Five Walls Gallery Recently

 Exhibitions to June 27

1/119 Hopkins Street, Footscray

https://fivewalls.com.au

Sean Hogan: Tapestry

Installation Images:

''Tapestry by Sean Hogan draws on Footscray’s rich and diverse community as the foundation for a new series of abstract artworks. Hogan transforms statistical birthplace data into a vivid and poetic visualisation of shared belonging." Excerpt, Five Walls Website.

Foreground: TAPESTRY S5, 2026, Flagrite fabric with metal tube,
bluestone 8 x 1 m edition of 3 with AP. 

The Tapestry series of Giclee prints on Hahnemuhle
 305gsm ultra smooth photo rag, each 84.1 x 59.4 cm.

Project Spaces

Elisabeth Bodey: Harmony

From the Harmony series #3, 2026,

acrylic on board, 40 x 30 cm.

"Colour and structure in painting can reflect harmonies of sound ... On the traditional piano, there is the music rack above the keys that holds the pianists music pages. I have referenced this structure in my paintings, acting as a go-between, between music and painting. Its inclusion contextualises the shared aspects of both contemporary classical i.e. New Music and painting. I see it as ‘holding’ the conversation between the two forms." Excerpt, Elisabeth Bodey, Five Walls Gallery Website.

From the Harmony series #8, 2026,

acrylic on board, 60 x 120 cm.

L: Keys to my kingdom, 2024, piano keys, acrylic on board, 72 x 29 x 40 cm.

R: From the Harmony series #11, 2026, acrylic on board, 40 x 30 cm.

From the Harmony series #4, 2026,

acrylic on board, 60 x 120 cm.

Eva Stimson Clark: When Choosing What to Vow

When Choosing What to Vow, 2026,

collage weave of repurposed carton card,

cotton thread and acrylic paint 43 x 31 cm.

Whenever the Words Run Dry, 2026,
collage weave of repurposed carton card,
cotton thread and acrylic paint 32 x 33 cm.

'This body of work explores stitching on cardboard as both a material process and a way of organising thought. Built from fragments, the surfaces evoke digital glitches, yet remain grounded in tactile labour. Much of the cardboard retains its original printed surface—glossy, consistent, and commercially produced—while sections of hand-painted material introduce matte, irregular passages where brushstrokes remain visible...' Excerpt, Eva Stimson Clark, Five Walls Gallery Website.

Stephen Wickham: On An Ideology of Schisms

On An Ideology of Schisms #11, 2025, oil on linen, 54 x 140 cm (Triptych).

L: On An Ideology of Schisms #10, 2025, oil on linen, 65 x 120 cm (Quardriptych).

R: On An Ideology of Schisms #11, 2025. 

"The work in this exhibition draws on the tradition of the avant guard artists of Ukraine and Russia: roughly 1900-1930s. Their formal inventiveness and historical significance continue to engage my attention.

The imperatives of Soviet era art being played to an audience and culture so utterly different has a shudder of the absurd. Then perhaps the Eurocentric construct of classical naturalism and multi point perspective have grown beyond the use of the Church?

Non-Objective Art is unpopular and commonplace. The historical complexities and grandeur imbedded in the graphic symbolism of States and Churches are prosecuted as orthodoxy, briefly. Meanings, in art, are malleable and dependent on context which is always in flux. The ever-optimistic hero Candide would love being an artist in Australia today." Stephen Wickham, 2026, Five Walls Gallery Website.