Australian Women Artists

Richard Graham
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  • 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. 6d ago

    Jude Rae

    Australian Women Artists  The podcast   Ep 90 Jude Rae   Jude Rae is one of Australia's most respected painters. She’s an artist who has spent over four decades looking very, very hard at the things most of us walk straight past — jars, bottles, gas cylinders, fire extinguishers, empty foyers — and turning them into paintings of extraordinary stillness and presence.  Jude was born in Sydney and was the daughter of realist painter David Rae. In fact, both her father and Grandmother trained at Julian Ashton Art School...and in 1968 Jude herself joined classes there. And, having done the sums, I calculated that she was 12 years old when this occurred! Jude went on to study art and architecture of the Renaissance at the University of Sydney and undertook postgraduate study at COFA and then spent over a decade in New Zealand where she completed a Masters at Canterbury University. NZ is, as a result, a place she calls her second home.  Jude has twice won the Portia Geach Memorial Award, she’s won the Bulgari Art Award in 2016, has been a four-time finalist in the Archibald Prize, three of those times being Highly Commended. Her portraits hang in Parliament House, the High Court and the National Portrait Gallery. And in 2025 she won the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. She has a very special place in the Australian art canon.     To hear our conversation, head to wherever you find your podcasts and search under Australian Women Artists...or head to the link in my bio.   Jude is represented by Philip Bacon Gallery in Brisbane and Two Rooms, Auckland NZ Images 1.   JR by Maria Stoljar courtesy JR 2.   SL 536, 2026 oil on linen (all paintings in these images are OOL) 71 x 61 3.   SL 464, 2022, 122 x 138 4.   SL 466, 2022, 112 x 138 5.   #540, 2026, 41 x 46 6.   SL 532, 2025, 41 x 46 7.   SL 527, 2026, 46 x 56

  2. Oct 6

    Louise Weaver

    Australian Women Artists   The podcast   Ep 89 Louise Weaver   Louise Weaver’s superb work asks us to look at the natural world...a little differently.   She has spent much of her career exploring the relationship between nature, culture and our often-complicated attempts to represent the world around us.   Working across sculpture, installation, textiles, painting and mixed media, Louise is perhaps best known for her extraordinary reimagining of animals and the natural environment.   Her works can be playful and beautiful...and slightly disconcerting. They seem to ask questions about extinction, conservation and human intervention.  Her work is held in many significant public and private collections including the British Museum, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Queensland Art Gallery, National Gallery of Victoria, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, National Gallery of Australia, Monash University Collection, Melbourne, Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand and Artbank, Australia.    We are having this conversation in the Art Gallery of NSW where Louise has works in two significant exhibitions: 1.   the Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial; and 2.   Super Nature.   Louise is represented by @darrenknightgallery   Images supplied by LW and AGNSW 1.   LW 2.   Taking a chance on love, 2003 3.   It would seem that eyes can live without hearts (Oracle Fox), 2005 4.   From the House of Fabius Rufus, 2008 5.   Rogue Antler, 2007 6.   Standing wave resonance, 2025 7.   Rocking stone (to become the sea), 2025

  3. Sep 29

    Emily Ferretti

    Australian Women Artists   The podcast   Ep 88 Emily Ferretti    Emily Ferretti is a Melbourne-based painter whose still-life and landscape images move between representation and abstraction. The importance of feeling and emotion becomes obvious looking at her work.   She grew up on a property in country Victoria, trained at the Victorian College of the Arts, and has since built a career via residencies at Gertrude Contemporary in Melbourne, the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, and Greene Street Studio in New York.   Her monotype series Shifting Landscapes saw her selected as a finalist in the Ramsay Art Prize at the Art Gallery of South Australia, and this year she begins a new chapter with representation at Chalk Horse in Sydney, alongside her long-standing gallery, Sophie Gannon, in Melbourne.  We spoke about a number of things. I was particularly interested in the evolution of her subject matter and the importance of her experience at TAFE before she got to VCA, how she ensured her momentum was maintained even just after leaving art college, the collegiate atmosphere amongst other artists and how that propelled her forward. Also the surprising affect a residency in Paris had on her art. It was surprising to me anyway. We also discussed how she broke into representation by a gallery (Sophie Gannon).     To hear our conversation head to wherever you get your podcasts and search Australian Women Artists.    Emily is represented by Sophie Gannon in Melbourne and Chalk Horse in Sydney     Images  1.   EF via Chalk Horse website 2.   Afternoon Light, 2025 ink and watercolour on paper 107 x 77.5 (Finalist R & M McGivern Prize, 2026)

  4. Sep 22

    Sally Ross

    Australian Women Artists   The podcast   Ep 87 Sally Ross   Sally Ross is an intellectually captivating painter who works between hypnotic landscapes and psychological portraiture.   Sally has spent over three decades developing a distinctive visual language defined by flattened, patterned surfaces, cool palettes, and a deep dialogue with art history.   After eight formative years living in France, (amongst other things, running an artists’ squat in an abandoned seventeenth-century hospice) and exhibiting across Europe and America, she returned to Melbourne to establish a studio practice.   A six-time Archibald Prize finalist whose portrait The Huxleys was selected for the historic Archie 100 tour.   Sally has work held in major public collections including the National Gallery of Victoria and the National Portrait Gallery.  But it’s the experiences and lessons she’s learnt along the way that were absorbing to me...and no doubt would be valuable to those artists starting their journey. An enjoyable conversation. She’s fabulous.     Head to wherever you get your podcasts and search Australian Women Artists.    Sally is represented by Smith & Singer, Melbourne & Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney   Images 1.   SR by Mel Savage 2.   Autoportrait, 2021 (Archibald finalist) oil on board 130 x 110 3&4 The Huxleys, 2018 (Archibald finalist) oil on wood panel 130x110 5. SR with the Huxleys 6. Riverbed grevillea, 2025, oil on board, 130 x 110

  5. Sep 15

    Elizabeth Barnett

    Australian Women Artists  The podcast   Ep 86 Elizabeth Barnett     Elizabeth Barnett is a painter and printmaker who also utilises textiles and pottery. Her still life and interior paintings have become instantly recognisable — plant-filled nooks, stacked books, jugs and vases, all rendered in a distinct palette that reflects the season.   She has a deep reverence for the everyday. From her early training in the rigorous world of printmaking to lush, translucent paintings on stretched linen, and eventually to thickly layered oil works in her bushland studio.   She is also an incredible community builder, having co-founded Melbourne's iconic Schoolhouse Studios, a massive, not-for-profit creative hub.   Today, working from her home studio in the Macedon Ranges, Elizabeth continues to celebrate the gentle, wondrous beauty of daily life while acting as a passionate advocate for female representation in the arts.  “Her subjects do not sit flat upon the canvas, but instead reach up from it, enlivened by the wild and natural world. This liveliness belies the ‘stillness’ of still life painting and along with Barnett’s painterly gestures of shadow, line and colour creates a visual dynamism reaches beyond tradition.”     To have a listen to our conversation, head to the link in my bio or search Australian Women Artists wherever you find your podcasts.    Elizabeth is represented by Flinders Lane Gallery in Melbourne.      Images supplied by artists   1.   EB 2.   Nocturne Arrangement 2026 oil on linen 215 x 153 3.   Floribunda and Gwen 2026 oil on linen 81 x 91 4.   Nocturne 2024 oil on linen 153 x 122 5 & 6 installation shots

  6. Sep 8

    Nell

    Australian Women Artists   The podcast   Ep 85 Nell   Nell is one of Australia's most distinctive contemporary artists, working across painting, sculpture, performance, video and installation.  She has spent three decades building a visual language shaped by rock 'n' roll, Buddhist philosophy and religious iconography. Smiley faces, lightning bolts, ghosts, tears and eggs recur throughout her art and help create works that have been described as playful, insightful and poetic.  Her work explores the binaries of human existence – birth and death, sorrow and happiness, light and dark.  It’s a fascinating story and, with 300+ exhibitions to consider, I’ve had the unenviable task of choosing just a few to discuss without minimising the others otherwise we’d be still chatting well into 2027! ‘Nell has developed a unique visual language that traverses scale, medium and materiality. Regardless of the outcome, her work explores oppositional thresholds and the fertile space that exist beyond the binary: from intimate to immersive, found to fabricated, high to low culture, two-dimensions to three-dimensions, individual to collaborative, ancient to contemporary, sacred to profane.... At the heart of Nell’s practice is an offering of connection and companionship; a reminder that we are not alone.’ Station Gallery (representing Nell).   To have a listen to our conversation, head to my bio or search ‘Australian Women Artists’ wherever you normally find your podcasts.       Images    1.    Holding Both, 2026, Museum of Contemporary Art, Photo Anna Kucera 2.    Let There Be Robe, 2011, Museum of Old and New Art, Photo Rémi Chauvin 3.    ROCK GATE, 2019, Carriageworks, Photo Zan Wimberley 4.    Nell x Colin McCahon: Through the Wall of Birth and Death, 2024, Dowse Art           Museum, Photo Sam Hartnett 5.    Face Everything, 2025-26, Heide Modern, Photo Christo Crocker 6+7. NELL ANNE QUILT, 2020-24, Photo Jenni Carter

  7. Sep 1

    Chelsea Gustafsson

    Australian Women Artists  The podcast  Ep 84 Chelsea Gustafsson    Chelsea Gustafsson is an artist whose work invites us to look closer at the quiet, often overlooked items of our daily lives—transforming mass-produced objects, ornaments, and domestic clutter into highly detailed, deeply metaphorical still lifes.   Her paintings are incredibly beautiful, but they also carry a sharp undercurrent of modern anxiety, apathy, and ecological grief.   From her early beginnings influenced by 3D sculptors to painting on her dining table, Chelsea has built a formidable practice that has seen her work acquired by the City of Melbourne, celebrated as a finalist in the prestigious Kennedy Prize, and exhibited internationally in Berlin. And very recently, she was selected for the celebrated Salon des Refusés at the S.H. Ervin Gallery.  “I like to play with objects and textures that don’t necessarily sit well together naturally. Through the process of constructing items into a sculptural form and twisting or balancing them to find their sweet spot for a composition and watching how the light falls and reflects across them, they begin to gel as a single form and a beauty emerges.”     Head to my bio and follow the link to our podcast conversation...or search Australian Women Artists wherever you find your podcasts.   Chelsea is represented by: Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne Penny Contemporary, Hobart Michael Reid Berlin   Images 1.   CG supplied by artist 2.   Self Portrait, 2026, Oil on board (all works on these images are OOB) 30 x 40 3.   Lobster, 2025, 15 x 20 4.   Surfcoast Highway, 2019, 15 x 20 5.   Mint, 2020, 40 x 50 6.   Tasmanian Tigers, 2024 22 x 30 7.   Trophy 01, 2022, 15 x 20

  8. Aug 25

    Nicole Kelly

    Australian Women Artists   The podcast   Ep 83 Nicole Kelly   Nicole Kelly is one of contemporary Australia’s most sensitive and intellectually rigorous painters, working beautifully across landscape, portraiture, and still life.  She creates deeply evocative, expressive oil works that challenge the very mechanics of how we represent, and perhaps try to own, the Australian landscape. In fact, it would probably be fair to say that she is an artist who's spent nearly two decades quietly ‘unsettling’ one of Australia's oldest genres. Since graduating from the National Art School and winning the prestigious Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship, Nicole has built a formidable practice defined by evolving technical processes and academic rigour.   She’s been a finalist in a number of awards and has also won significant prizes including her recently winning the prestigious Evelyn Chapman Art Award. She will utilise that to study Nordic painting traditions. And we need to discuss that of course.  Her paintings pull you in with glowing colour and soft, pliable brushwork, then quietly remind you that no landscape is ever just scenery. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections.   A really enjoyable conversation and to hear it, head to the link in my bio or search ‘Australian Women Artists’ wherever you find your podcasts.      You can find more information about Nicole at her website: www.nicolerenaekelly.com Nicole is represented by Nicholas Thomson Gallery, Melbourne (@nicholasthompsongallery) Art House Gallery, Sydney (@arthousegallery)     Images 1.   NK via Nicholas Thompson Gallery 2.   Jumaadi + Clouds + Rain, 2017 oil on polyester (all paintings on this list are OOP), 150 x 130 3.   Rain Inscribed Lines, 2024, 169 x 198 4.   Bird Hour, 2026, 117 x 107 5.   Dance of March Flies, 2024, 138 x 167 6.   Waiting for the Sun, 2026, 122 x 153

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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
    91
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Australian Women Artists
  • Show Website
    Australian Women Artists

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