Australian Women Artists

Richard Graham
  • 5.0 (25)
  • Visual Arts
  • Updated Weekly

Australian women artists have been (and continue to be) underrepresented and undervalued in this country despite the stunning artistic works that have been produced since the mid nineteenth century.  This podcast will shine a light on those artists and their spectacular art works. I'll be talking to the artists themselves, both established and emerging, as well as experts on Australian women artists in history. 

  1. 2 days ago

    Kate Shaw

    Australian Women Artists   The podcast   Ep 76 Kate Shaw     Kate Shaw is an award-winning Australian artist who spends her time working and living between Melbourne and the US, having exhibited in Australia for over 20 years and internationally for over 10 years.   Through her luminous landscapes, Kate has created an artistic world that is quite breathtaking, but also quite unsettling. Over that career, it would be fair to say she has fundamentally reinterpreted how we perceive the natural world.   Her practice began to be recognized not just for its innovative methodology, but for its ecological statements.   Kate has held solo exhibitions in New York, San Francisco, London, Hong Kong and throughout Australia. She has also been part of group exhibitions in many other countries.   ‘Kate has become a compelling voice in contemporary painting, known for her immersive, surreal landscapes that probe our relationship with the natural world. Shaw’s richly layered works — created through ‘paint pours’, resin, and reflective surfaces — evoke geological and atmospheric phenomena while inviting contemplation on ecological fragility, climate change, and the psychological experience of nature.’ Olsen Gallery     To hear our conversation head to the link in my bio or search Australian Women Artists wherever you find your podcasts.    Kate is represented by Olsen Gallery, Sydney (@olsen_gallery)   For more info on Kate: www.kateshaw.org     Images:   1.   KS by Belle Stewart 2.   Divine Matrix 2026 acrylic & resin on board 120 diam 3.   89 Seconds to Midnight 2025 acrylic on board 120 diam 4.   Aurora 2016 acrylic and resin on board 120 diam 5.   Carbon Entanglement 2026 acrylic and resin 60 x 50

    39 min

  2. 16 June

    Lucy Culliton

    Australian Women Artists The podcast Ep 75 Lucy Culliton     Lucy Culliton is a gem.  It was such an enjoyable conversation – she always has interesting stories, and I was just lucky enough to be sitting on the other side of the table.  It becomes quite apparent that Lucy finds a portrait in everything she looks at — a cactus spine, a prize rooster, a knitted doll, a greyhound asleep in the afternoon light. And that’s because she paints with an intimacy that seems to breathe life into those everyday scenes and objects? Lucy Culliton lives and works on a property at the edge of Bibbenluke in the Snowy Monaro. There she has created a beautiful garden, and she also shares the property with cows, sheep, goats, horses, pigeons, ducks and many rescued greyhounds. The farm is not a backdrop to the work. It is the work. Lucy studied at the National Art School, graduating in 1996, and has spent three decades building one of the most beloved and distinctive bodies of work in Australian painting. She is a multiple Archibald, Wynne and Sulman finalist, and this year won the Sir John Sulman Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Her paintings make you slow down. They make you look harder. And they make the ordinary world feel, somehow, like more than enough. I decided within seconds of starting this conversation that, for listeners to get the full picture, it would best to just let it roll. No editing. It is what it is with Lucy. And aren’t we all the luckier for that.  Lucy is represented by @kingstreetgallery in Sydney and @janmurphygallery in Brisbane Her exhibition, Grasses, Tussocks & Sedges is at King St till 4 July   Head to my bio for a link to the podcast episode or search for Australian Women Artists wherever you find your podcasts.   Images 1.   LC via Painted River Project 2.   Bibbenluke Spring 2025 oil on canvas 122 x 99 3.   Top Swamp II 2023 oil on canvas 199 x 122 4.   Toolah, artist assist and and model oil on canvas 140 x140 (winner Sulman Prize 2026) 5.   View From The Pavillion Gunningrah 2026 oil on canvas 184 x 183 6.   Love lies bleeding 2017 oil on canvas 244 x 183

    34 min

  3. 9 June

    Rachel Milne

    Australian Women Artists   The podcast   Ep 74 Rachel Milne   Rachel Milne is a Newcastle-based painter whose work turns everyday interiors, objects, and moments into beautifully compelling paintings.   Rachel grew up in Cambridge, trained in Cardiff, and built an early career in Britain serious enough to earn her membership of the Royal West of England Academy.   Then, in 2013, she packed up and moved to the other side of the world — to Newcastle, New South Wales — and something shifted.   She is a painter of interiors. Of unmade beds and cluttered studios, of hallways and mirrors, of spaces that hold the shape of the people who inhabit them.   She works in oil, from life, often in a single sitting — because she believes the camera makes too many decisions on her behalf.   She has been a finalist in numerous significant awards including the Wynne Prize and Portia Geach and has won the Evelyn Chapman Award, Muswellbrook Art Prize and the Vincent Prize. More recently she has spent time as artist-in-residence at the Liddell Power Station — finding beauty in a building the world was busy demolishing.  And who could have guessed this started from painting backgrounds for Wallace and Gromit.    Head to the link in my bio to have a listen to our conversation.   Rachel’s latest exhibition: Newcastle, High is on at King Street Gallery on William (Sydney) till 4 July 2026.   For more info and examples of her work, head to www.rachelmilneartist.com.au   Rachel is represented in Sydney by King Street Gallery on William (@kingstreetgallery) and Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne (@sophiegannongallery)     Images 1.   RM by David Griffen 2.   The Stage, Victoria Theatre 2021 160 x 120 3.   Nest, 2022 oil on board (winner Muswellbrook Painting Prize) 4.   Studio Haefligers 2016 50 x 80 (Bathurst Regional Art Gallery Collection) 5.   View From The Stage, Victoria Theatre, 2021 80 x 100 6.   Town Hall 2026 60 x 80

    32 min

  4. 2 June

    Kirtika Kain

    Australian Women Artists  The podcast  Ep 73 Kirtika Kain   Kirtika Kain was born in New Delhi, India and raised on Sydney's Northern Beaches, and is making some of the most viscerally powerful art in the country right now.  Kirtika is a printmaker, a painter, and an alchemist. Her works often depict the overlooked. One of the extraordinary ways she does that is by taking materials such as pigments, wax, sindoor, human hair, charcoal, gold and tar and transforming them into works that carry centuries of inherited memory.  Her practice is a reckoning with identity, and what might be termed the silences passed down through generations. But it’s more than that. It's also an act of celebration and the grandeur of a culture that has never been properly archived.  She has shown at the Biennale of Sydney, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, and in galleries across Australia and Europe.  Head to the link in my bio to hear our conversation.    Kirtika (@kirtika.kain) is represented by Roslyn Oxley9 (@roslynoxley9)   Images 1.   KK in her studio at Parramatta Artists’ Studios, by Garry Trinh 2.   Chronicles, Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2025-26 3.   Mimetics, Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2025-26 4.   2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art 5.   Stone Idols, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery 2021

    43 min

  5. 26 May

    Lily Mae Martin

    Australian Women Artists   The podcast   Ep 72 Lily Mae Martin   Lily Mae Martin is a remarkable visual artist known for her deeply personal explorations of womanhood, motherhood, and the human condition. Her own strength and resilience in the face of, at times, enormous challenges, is remarkable. She is celebrated for her masterful draughtsmanship, particularly her delicate and detailed cross-hatching using fine liner ink pens, building up thousands upon thousands of tiny lines to produce an incredible tone.  After graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2008 and winning the Lionel Gell travelling scholarship, she spent years refining her practice in Berlin and Wales before returning to Australia.  Her work has always been predominantly figurative, with a love of traditional portraiture approached in an unconventional way — seeking to capture people outside of the polished, self-conscious way they present themselves to a camera. She was a finalist for the 2016 Rick Amor Drawing Prize, Art Gallery of Ballarat; winner of the 2016 Ursula Hoff Institute Emerging Artist Acquisitive Art Award in the National Works on Paper exhibition, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery; and shortlisted for the 2016 Paul Guest Drawing Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery, Adelaide Perry drawing prize 2017 and the Dobell Drawing Prize 2019. Lily Mae also contributed to The Drawing Board – a four part segment exploring drawing on Radio National, The Arts Program in 2022.   Lily Mae (@lilymaemartin) is represented by Scott Livesey Galleries (@scottliveseygalleries)   I referred in our conversation to the National Gallery of Victoria ‘Drop-by Drawing’ programme of which Lily Mae was a part. The link is below https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/multimedia/drop-by-drawing-with-lily-mae-martin/ Head to the link in my bio to have a listen to our conversation.     Images 1.   LMM supplied by artist 2.   Orchid Medley 2025 ink on cotton paper 15 x 20 3.   Waterloo State Forest 2016 ink on paper 76 x 105 4.   Nothing is Untouched (Moorabool) 2024 ink on paper 56 x 76 5.   Emerging

    38 min

  6. 19 May

    Julie Fragar

    Australian Women Artists   The podcast   Ep 71 Julie Fragar   Julie Fragar is one of the country's most compelling painters.  For those who are familiar with that name, it could well be because she recently made headlines as the winner of the prestigious 2025 Archibald Prize. What is perhaps not as well known to the general public is that that win marked the 4th time she had been a finalist in that competition. For over two decades, Julie's practice has been described as pushing the intellectual limits of painting. Her works are deeply psychological, and weave together autobiography, historical narratives and intense human experiences.  We had a great conversation talking about her childhood in country NSW, her art school experiences, her visual technique which she describes as not "layering," but rather as images "woven" or "knitted" together, where all images exist simultaneously on the canvas, the incredible works she produced after sitting in the public gallery of the Supreme Court and later when she shadowed a gynaecological surgeon and witnessed the visceral reality of the operating theatre and, of course, her 2025 win in the Archibald Prize.  Julie Fragar’s work is held in major public collections including the Art Gallery of New South Wales; Art Gallery of South Australia; and the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art. She has been the recipient of major awards and institutional commissions. And Professor Fragar also happens to be Deputy Director (Research) at the Queensland College of Art and Design, Griffith University.    Head to the link in my bio to hear our conversation, or search Australian Women Artists wherever you find your podcasts.        Images 1.   JF, AGNSW, Diana Panuccio 2.   Flagship Mother Multiverse (Justene) 2025 oil on canvas, 240 x 180 (Archibald winner 2025) 3.   Richard, 2020 oil on canvas 180 x 135 (Archibald finalist) 4.   Trust, 2026 oil on canvas 180 x 135 5.   Drown in Your Own Ambition, 2021 6.   Origin of the World (or One Battle After Another), 2026

    32 min

  7. 12 May

    Lisa Bale

    Australian Women Artists  The podcast  Ep 70 Lisa Bale    It would probably be fair to say that Lisa Bale sits outside the art establishment.  She lives and works remotely on a bush property situated in the hinterland of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.  Not having formal art training has been no hindrance to an exceptional talent. In fact, it’s probably a big contributing factor to her success. Her works are witty, surprising, and visually arresting takes on modern-day dilemmas.  Her extensive career spans nearly four decades and she has deliberately cultivated a distinctive aesthetic that marries meticulous technique with deeply personal, often idiosyncratic subject matter.  Her works are held in the permanent collections of prestigious institutions, including the Art Gallery of South Australia, QAGOMA, the University of Queensland Art Museum, Rockhampton Art Gallery, and the private collection of Lord Jeffrey Archer in London.  The work is stunning, and I’m honoured that she’s chosen to have a chat on AWA because in nearly 40 years of creativity, Lisa has told me she has never done this sort of focussed and in-depth interview. For over 20 years Lisa has been represented by Philip Bacon Galleries, one of Australia’s leading art galleries.   From their website... “Meticulously producing hyper-real imagery, Bale uses oil paint and a deft hand to load dramatic scenes with rich metaphor and illusory turns.”    Head to the link in my bio to hear our conversation or search for ‘Australian Women Artists’ wherever you find your podcasts.    Images  1. Lisa Bale, 2026, photograph by Kim Guthrie @iphotographstuff  2. Rose Garden, 2008, 53 x 70 cm, oil on canvas Collection: Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA)  3. Sacred Heart, 2019, 61 x 80 cm, oil on canvas Private Collection  4. Dig, 2011, 68 x 100 cm, oil on canvas Collection: University of Queensland Art Museum  5. Icebreaker, 2014, 49 x 83 cm, oil on canvas Private Collection  6. Inquisition, 2016, 54 x 80 cm, oil on canvas  Collection: Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA)

    25 min

  8. 5 May

    Heidi Yardley

    Australian Women Artists  The Podcast  Ep 69 Heidi Yardley     Heidi Yardley is a Melbourne-born painter whose work occupies a significant space in contemporary Australian art — intimate, psychological, and immediately recognisable.   ‘[Heidi] works with found images to create scenes of mysterious temporality. Often painted in faded hues, her artwork is suggestive of a period that could sit somewhere between the 1960’s and 70’s.’  She works with oil paint and charcoal and incredible collaging techniques where she creates anonymous portraits of sexualised and domesticated femininity.   Over three decades she has drawn on vintage imagery, cinema, music, and the female experience as inspiration.   Heidi has been a finalist in significant prizes including The Archibald Prize, Wynne Prize, Sulman Prize and The Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, has held two artist residencies in New York, and has been listed as one of Australia’s 50 most collectable artists.  It was a great broad ranging conversation. We covered her obsession with art at high school and her struggle to get into the painting course she desperately wanted (spoiler: she persisted and got in!), her love of figurative art and having to resist pressures from outside to think and act more conceptually – and her persistence paid dividends again. I loved her description of how she felt when overseas standing in front of paintings she had only seen in books to that point. We talked about her visual language, how she finds titles for her works and ... Nick Cave. Which I’m always up for a chat about.   Mood, mystery and the unresolved image.    Head to the link in my bio to have a listen. Heidi is represented by Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane (@janmurphygallery) and Nicholas Thompson Gallery, Melbourne (@nicholasthompsongallery)     Images 1.   HY by Lisa Barmby 2.   The masked bride, 2024 oil on canvas 140 x 100 3.   The black veil, 2019 charcoal on primed paper 84 x 110 4.   The door, 2021 oil on canvas 144 x 116 5.   Psychique 2021 oil on canvas 140 x 110

    38 min
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5
out of 5
25 Ratings

About

Australian women artists have been (and continue to be) underrepresented and undervalued in this country despite the stunning artistic works that have been produced since the mid nineteenth century.  This podcast will shine a light on those artists and their spectacular art works. I'll be talking to the artists themselves, both established and emerging, as well as experts on Australian women artists in history. 

Information

  • Creator
    Richard Graham
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    77
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Australian Women Artists
  • Show Website
    Australian Women Artists

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