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Wife of an Art Dealer, Gymea (2026)

20/02/2026

With the dealer doing deals in Melbourne, the wife is surviving in Sydney with two small boys. The joys. In the midst of lunch boxes and soccer balls flying around the house I managed to find a spare 27 minutes to whizz around Art Express at Hazelhurst Arts Centre. The annual showcase of HSC works by Visual Arts students from NSW high schools never disappoints. With a passion for education and a passion for art, this exhibition really is where my two worlds collide.

Walking in I’m instantly struck by the beauty of the work. The depth of painting, the detail in the drawings, the fun in the sculptures. A feast for the eyes. Drawing on inspiration from heritage, family, the world around them and core beliefs, the works are far more meaningful than perhaps first meets the eye. At times I find myself forgetting these artworks are actually by teenagers. Truly incredible.

“Students push aesthetic, conceptual and formal boundaries, experimenting across a range of expressive forms including drawing, painting, ceramics, photomedia, time-based forms, graphic design, sculpture and printmaking.”

Showcasing works from 51 students across NSW schools the exhibition includes 7 students from southern Sydney. Love supporting local. Read their stories, enjoy the works, support local schools.

Coupled with the garden’s creek and a coffee at Hazel, does your Saturday morning get any better? Not for me. A must.

ART EXPRESS 2026 is running until 12th April 2026 at Hazelhurst Arts Centre and other leading galleries and museums.

05/02/2026

School’s back and so are the exhibition openings. Both equally exciting. Time to be rid of the children (lovingly) and welcome in more art please.

Tonight’s opening showcased the incredibly talented as part of the Bank of America’s ‘Art of Connecting’ program curated by

Could not stop smiling through this collection of works spanning the last 20 years of Joanna’s career. Wonderful evening complete with a full menagerie and no children whinging for food. Heaven. Take a minute to soak in the joy of these incredible works.

12/10/2025

Along with the 237 requests for food each day, “Mum, do we have any paper?” would have to be the most common question in our house. At times I wonder if I have actually relocated to a paper mill as I sit surrounded by piles of drawings, paper aeroplanes and lists of tricky words. It was no surprise therefore that a show completely based around paper was a hit for all in the slightly paper obsessed household.

Landing in the main gallery of Hazelhurst Arts Centre, we were immediately surrounded by drawings, watercolour works, sculptures, animations and even works from paper thread. Truly fascinating. 61 finalists are on show in the main space from 1055 entries from across Australia all vying for the $15,000 major prize and subsequent awards.

Judged by Wollongong Art Gallery Director, Dr Daniel Mudie Cunningham, the 2025 award brought creativity, adaptability and a willingness to push paper to new heights, not ever seen in the exhibition before. Mudie Cunningham said of the finalist works, “This year’s finalists prove paper to be an endlessly mutable medium—folded, woven, stitched, scorched, collaged and animated. Artists turn to it for its fragility and resilience, as a carrier of memory, grief, protest, humour, and everyday ritual” which couldn’t be more true. The breadth and depth of the work is impressive.

We pottered the main space, approached by staff and volunteers with paper samples to be touched and textures to be explored. Heaven for small children with wandering hands. The boys spent quite some time questioning the staff, at which point I felt like we were perhaps entering a game of “20 Questions”. Apparently it’s very important that the seven-year-old knows how to make a spear and also critical to know who won all the awards because when you’re nine and seven, medals and money are life.

For me, this year’s highlights included Iluwanti Ken, Karen Coull, Naomi Jobson, Edwina Green, Isobel Rayson, Pamela Leung and the APY Lands artist, Frank Young.

Go, visit for yourself and vote for your favourite. A wonderful exhibition showcasing all that can be achieved from a humble piece of paper. Just incredible.

23/09/2025

I was always that child and admittedly still am that adult that loves mail. The excitement of coming home and finding mail in the letterbox. What a thrill. Good friends know nothing speaks more love than a handwritten card in the mail. Perhaps it’s slightly strange but I find the same online. To find an email, a message, a moment of connection in the ether gives that same sense of excitement. So when gallerist Mikayla Verbunt landed in my inbox with news it was nothing but joy.

Born in Australia, Verbunt now lives and works in Colorado, USA. With a lifelong passion for art and a background in fine art and art history, Mikayla has recently created and now launched a platform where artists can showcase their work to an international audience, and where collectors can discover unique, timeless, contemporary art.

Verbunt shares, “I created the kind of platform I wished existed. Verbunt Galerie brings together remarkable artists from around the world in one digital space. It’s like visiting the best global galleries, all from the comfort of your living room.”

Verbunt Galerie is a deeply personal project for Mikayla. Its name is inspired by her grandparents, who immigrated from Holland to Australia in 1953 and built a life from scratch. Passionate travellers and collectors, they filled their home with objects gathered from around the world. Verbunt Galerie carries forward their spirit of curiosity, creativity, and the art of building something uniquely your own.

Opening its virtual doors on 1 October, Verbunt Galerie will host a debut show featuring artists from Portugal, Australia, Greece, Austria, Denmark, and the USA, including painters, ceramicists, and textile artists. What a line up!

The online launch will follow a physical pop-up event on 26 September in Boulder Colorado, where you can preview the gallery’s debut collection. If you find yourself nearby, go, say hello, and connect in real life. For those around the world you can discover and connect with Mikyla and the gallery .galerie

Go on, give her a thrill!

03/09/2025

MARCO FUSINATO
Thirteen Months in the Year
Now showing until 25th October
PALAS, Sydney

Must see. Incredible new works.

17/08/2025

I first came across the work of Tom Polo at our local regional gallery Hazelhurst Arts Centre. He had been invited to be part of a group exhibition and I just happened to walk in and stumble across his work. When I say stumble, what I really mean is “blown away” by his work.

It’s very hard to miss a Tom Polo work. Bright, bold and beautiful all come to mind when I think of Polo, despite the alliteration. He is known for his works across painting and installation, “giving material form to the intangible acts of exchange between people.”

This weekend I found myself away in Bowral with our leadership team for some strategic planning with the added bonus of country walks, red wine and pottering through Tom’s show child free. Heaven. Honestly bliss. Did I mention I was child free? On walking through the doors I find myself at the back of a family gaggle all staring at what appears to be a blue clock on the wall. I soon discover the clock is indeed a work and a smiling face appears, causing laughter to erupt in the silence after a series of cheeky comments. Genius. There’s no doubt at this point your experience as both the audience and being an “active participant” begins.

Through the doors I go and find myself surrounded by works standing upright around the main gallery space leaving me to meander through a maze of “fun and abstract” paintings, as described by the teenager behind me. The thematic narrative of Polo’s work has been punctuated by artworks by renowned international artists Tracey Emin, Ugo Rondinone, and Urs Fischer. Need I say more?Honestly I didn’t want to leave. I was surrounded by colour, joy, storytelling, reflections and my own thoughts as I pottered through the last room in my socks (no shoes allowed)! How often can you say you’ve experienced world class art in a regional gallery in your socks?

It’s one you don’t want to miss and you don’t have much time!

The “in a part of your mind, I am you” exhibition is now showing at Ngununggula Regional Gallery in the Southern Highlands until 24th August 2025.

03/08/2025

FORTY ONE I honestly feel like I’ve only just turned thirty. Celebrating forty feels like a few weekends ago. How time flies. Literally. I was reminded recently about the privilege it is to age. To have the chance to grow old. To wake each day with air in my lungs. To see the sun rise and set in safe skies. To watch our kids play in a park without worry. What a gift.

I’m grateful for all those around us in this season of life. I’m grateful for the beautiful part of the world we are blessed to raise our family. I’m grateful for another year of celebrating. I’m grateful for the privilege it is to age. What a gift.

01/08/2025

Surprise! The Sydney downpour continues this weekend. Joy. But it’s time to get out of your pjs and head out to see some of the city’s best culture this weekend. Here’s where I’ll be (or would like to be of if I could clone myself!):

1. Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes at Art Gallery of NSW. Closes Sunday 17th August. The clock is ticking!
2. Nick Collerson at PALAS. You don’t want to miss this show.
3. Cerith Wyn Evans at MCA. Sculpture like no other!
4. Tender Comrade at White Rabbit Gallery. Read the warning. Love it.
5. Grief Is the Thing with Feathers at Belvoir Theatre. I’ve booked to see and can’t wait!
6. CatVideoFest. The world’s #1 cat video festival, CatVideoFest is back this weekend. Catch it at your local cinema. .au
7. Drive to Canberra and get yourself to the NGA and National Portrait Gallery. So much to see. Totally worth it!
8. Carmen at the Sydney Opera House! Hotter than a Coldplay concert.
9. Naminapu Maymuru-White at Sullivan+Strump’s Zetland gallery. Totally mesmerising.
10. Carriageworks! Grab some food, buy those flowers, see a show and take the dog!

Turn off the TV, get dressed and enjoy the spoils of the city!

24/07/2025

Mr Squiggle and Friends. A trip down memory lane. I spent many years with this Australian icon. Thank you for bringing Heatherington’s world of puppetry, cartooning and art to life in this imaginative exhibition. My six-year-old self and this forty-year-old mum were in heaven!

Mr Squiggle and Friends: The Creative World of Norman Hetherington is on show in Canberra until 13 October 2025.

23/07/2025

There’s a concept that becomes very foreign when you enter parenthood and it’s called “alone time”. That is, time by oneself. Time without anyone else. Time on your own. Time ALONE. There are few things I dream about more. Last year I trialled this new concept of staying away for a night in a hotel by myself and to my absolute surprise, I loved it. So here we are again. A night away by myself. Bliss.

With the boys back at school I’ve managed to again swing 24 hours of culture in the nation’s capital flying solo. Heaven. And while I love the dealer, I’m actually here to spend time with my European loves; Cézanne, Picasso, Matisse and Giacometti, just to name a few. Cue the NGA’s blockbuster exhibition Cézanne to Giacometti: highlights from Museum Berggruen / Neue Nationalgalerie.

Bringing together over 80 works from the Berggruen collection alongside over 75 works from the National Gallery’s collection, this collaborative exhibition truly is incredible. It marks the first time works from this internationally significant collection have been seen in Australia. I repeat. First time.

The exhibition starts with Paul Cézanne, my first French love who I haven’t seen since the Tate in 2022. Far too long. He’s one who pushed against tradition giving courage to generations of artists who followed. You then of course have Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse, Paul Klee and Alberto Giacometti — inspired by Cézanne, with the works they created transforming perspective, colour, subject matter and form across the 20th century.

I started my solo tour with Cézanne, immediately wooed by the colour and composition of his works. The portrait of Madame Cézanne sits front and centre and boy was it lovely to see her again. Alongside the European masters, the exhibition seamlessly integrates the work of local artists showing how the themes of modernism took shape and reverberated in Australian art throughout the 1900s. The colourful landscapes of Grace Crossington-Smith sit alongside those of Cézanne, adding beauty but more importantly showing the parallels in composition and colour.

Continued in comments…

20/07/2025

Celebrating 25 years of Hazelhurst Arts Centre.

The most wonderful afternoon celebrating our local regional gallery. 25 years of exhibitions, innovation, community and a commitment to bringing the best of the arts to southern Sydney.

gymea

Wife of an Art Dealer

20/02/2026

05/02/2026

12/10/2025

23/09/2025

03/09/2025

17/08/2025

03/08/2025

01/08/2025

24/07/2025

23/07/2025

20/07/2025

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