Mythologies – Petrina Hicks

Image: Petrina Hicks
Image: Petrina Hicks

Presenting some of the most significant and enduring works from Petrina Hicks' celebrated archive. The artist's work includes large-scale photographs that draw from mythology, fables, and historical art imagery to re-frame the contemporary female experience.

Permeated with a sense of magical realism, animals and females often appear together to represent aspects of psyche and identity, alluding to the complexity of female identity and the sentience of animals. 

Hicks is among Australia's most esteemed, globally recognised contemporary artists, having honed her distinctive photographic style and cemented her place at the forefront of her field over an extraordinary career spanning more than two decades. 

Mythologies also pairs Hicks's images with a series of sculptures by internationally celebrated WA-based artist Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, whose work similarly delights in chimerical forms, folkloric allusions, and beguiling encounters between humans and animals.

Abdul-Rahman Abdullah is an artist living and working on Wadjuk Nyungar country, in the Peel region of Western Australia. His practice explores the intersections of identity, culture and nature.

MYTHOLOGIES IS A PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN MICHAEL REID SYDNEY + BERLIN, PERTH CENTRE FOR PHOTOGRAPHY, THE CITY OF PERTH + MOORE CONTEMPORARY

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November

Brisbane: Until 13 July 2025. Amateur Brisbane photographer Alfred Henrie Elliott (1870-1954) extraordinary images lay dormant for decades until they were discovered only recently. This exhibition is curated by seven Brisbane photographers.

Sydney: The photographs in Max Dupain: Student Life were taken at the University of Sydney in the early 1950s, a period of rapid change marked by the politics of the Cold War.

Perth: Until 18 May 2025. Henry Roy – Impossible Island draws on 40-years of recollections and observations as it brings together 113 photos taken from 1983 to 2023.

December

Melbourne: Until 31 January. Prepare to be transported into the picturesque world of Accidentally Wes Anderson: The Exhibition—an Instagram sensation and New York Times best-selling book brought to life!

Sydney: 5 December – 1 February. Photofields presents the Southern Sky Astrophotography 2024 exhibition, the 20th edition of the David Malin Awards.

Melbourne: until 16 Feb 2025. Petrina Hicks works with photography to create large-scale photographs that draw from mythology, fables, and historical art imagery to reframe the contemporary female experience.

Sydney: Until 31 Dec 2025. PIX, Australia’s first pictorial news weekly, is brought to life in this exhibition, showcasing its archived images and stories for the very first time.