29/05/2026
Bett Gallery is delighted to introduce the work of Ash Keating in After the Earth.
In late 2025, Keating spent five days in the Mt Field National Park in Tasmania’s south, photographing the environment with a long lens. Allowing the user to photograph small details from afar, the long lens focuses on bringing minutiae into close observation. In his Russell Falls Response, 2026 series, Keating has done exactly this. He brings the eye right up to the frothy spray of water cascading down slick, undulating rock. Surrounded by moss covered forest on both sides, Russell Falls (depending on the levels of rain or snowfall in the highlands) can either politely trickle or thunder down the cliffs, fanning out to create a rainbow of light filled water droplets at its base. By adding perlite and mica flakes to his painted surfaces, Keating injects an iridescent sheen that recalls this rainbow mist swirling into the surrounding atmosphere. Excerpt from Briony Downes essay
Keating has undertaken numerous large-scale painting commissions in public spaces for institutions such as the National Gallery of Victoria (2013), RMIT University (2014), the Adelaide Festival Centre (2015), TarraWarra Museum of Art (2019) and Museum Langmatt, Switzerland (2023). His practice has attracted significant attention in Australia, winning the Incinerator Art Prize (2015), Guirguis New Art Prize (2013), Substation Contemporary Art Prize (2012) and his works are held in many public and private collections including the NGV, NGA, MCA, AGNSW, MUMA and Artbank.
After the Earth
Naoise Halloran-Mackay
Pete Maarsaveen
Jake Walker
Eloise Kirk
Ash Keating
Georgie Vozar
📍 Bett Gallery
📅 On view from 29 May – 20 June 2026
🥂 Exhibition celebration: 12 June, 5:30pm, To be opened by Dr David Ashley Kerr, Head of Art, Tasmania Museum & Art Gallery
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