News

Fiona Roberts joins Hugo Michell Gallery as represented artist
23
Apr

Fiona Roberts joins Hugo Michell Gallery as represented artist

Hugo Michell Gallery welcomes the addition of Fiona Roberts to our represented artists!

Fiona Roberts is an Australian contemporary artist whose immersive installations examine themes of psychological and physical safety. Born in Darwin and based in Adelaide, Roberts’ work explores the interplay of symbolism, superstitions, rituals, and belief systems. Her practice frequently addresses dualities such as fear and safety, attraction and discomfort, and the broader complexities of the human experience.  

Roberts holds a Bachelor of Visual Art (Honours) from Adelaide Central School of Art and a Master of Teaching from the University of South Australia. Her solo exhibition, Hereafter, at Hugo Michell Gallery in 2024 engaged deeply with themes of mortality and transformation.

Roberts’ work explores the interplay between familiarity and latent complexity, as seen in exhibitions like Façade (2018) at Adelaide Central Gallery and Intimate Vestiges (2015) at KickArts Contemporary Arts in Cairns, which examined domestic spaces by juxtaposing the comforting aspects of home with their concealed dangers and hidden histories. She has exhibited both locally and internationally, most notably in Pure Not Proper (2018), Los Angeles, TAKE!EAT! (2015), London, and A Book Between Two Stools (2014) at the Boghossian Foundation in Brussels.

She has received awards such as the BankSA Best Visual Art and Design Award at the 2018 Adelaide Fringe Festival and has received multiple grants from the Australia Council for the Arts. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including Victionary’s Dark Inspirations (Hong Kong), Dark and Fetish Art (Japan), and more recently her work was featured on the cover of Art Collector magazine. 

Her works are held in national and international collections; such as the Art Gallery of Ballarat in regional Victoria, and several pieces on permanent display at Galila's POC in Brussels, Belgium.

We congratulate Fiona on her achievements and look forward to working together in the future!

Fiona Roberts' 'Hereafter' at Hugo Michell Gallery, 2024. 
Fiona Roberts' 'Façade' at Adelaide Central Gallery, 2018.
Fiona Roberts' 'Façade' at Adelaide Central Gallery, 2018.
Gallery closure over Easter long weekend
17
Apr

Gallery closure over Easter long weekend

Wishing you a joyful Easter long weekend!

Please note that Hugo Michell Gallery will be closed for the Easter long weekend, re-opening Tuesday 22nd April with our current exhibitions:

Richard Lewer | The stories that persist are not always true
James Dodd | SOUR DREAMS

Exhibitions continue until 10 May 2025. Please also note that the gallery will also be closed for the Anzac Day Public Holiday on 25th April.

Pictured: James Dodd, TANGY SPOIL, 2025, acrylic on canvas in powder coated aluminium tray frame, 79 x 53 cm

Sera Waters announced as Finalist in 2025 Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award
08
Apr

Sera Waters announced as Finalist in 2025 Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award

We’re delighted to share that Sera Waters has been selected as one of 10 finalists in the 2025 Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award.

The Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award celebrates the diversity and strength of Australian textile art. Now in its ninth iteration, the Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award was initially established to mark Wangaratta's long and prominent history of textile manufacturing and craft making. In furthering this unique tradition and social history the award celebrates and strengthens the development of contemporary textile practice in Australia. With the significant investment of project partners, the Kyamba Foundation, prize money now stands at $40,000, representing the richest textile prize in Australia.

The 2025 finalists, selected from over 430 entries Australia wide, are contemporary artists who not only demonstrate a mastery of technique in a broad textile medium, but innovation and excellence alongside a rigorous and robust conceptual practice.

The Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award 2025 will open on Saturday 24 May 2025 with the winner announced that day. The exhibition continues until 17 August 2025.



Pictured: Sera Waters in her studio, 2020. Photography by Sia Duff

Hugo Michell Gallery Opening: Richard Lewer + James Dodd
02
Apr

Hugo Michell Gallery Opening: Richard Lewer + James Dodd

Please join us for the launch of Richard Lewer’s ‘The stories that persist are not always true’ and James Dodd’s ‘SOUR DREAMS’ at Hugo Michell Gallery on Thursday 10th April, 6-8pm.

Richard Lewer
The stories that persist are not always true

About this body of work, Richard shares: "We are perhaps the stories we tell ourselves – a curious blend of truth and invention. My vivid childhood memories intermingle with fragments of recurring dreams, unsettling and elusive. Current news stories blend with ancient fables told over centuries, with their tricksters, heroes and villains; their warnings, and moral lessons. The narratives accumulate, layer by layer. Laminex tabletops are designed to withstand the spills and stains of family life, wiped clean again and again. We gather to tell our stories around tables, I like to think the traces of human experience remain. Painting on this resistant surface is challenging; like memory, the paint slips, resists, leaving faint impressions.

Richard Lewer, Let Me Tell You a Story, 2025, acrylic on laminate tabletop, 92 x 122 cm
James Dodd
SOUR DREAMS

The works in SOUR DREAMS arise from an ongoing exploration utilising a device conceived by Dodd known as 'The Painting Mill'. The final resulted paintings present as a refined, vivid and handsome object, charmingly finished in custom-coloured aluminium tray frames. James Dodd states “The Painting Mill outcomes are often saturated, saccharine, dense and fecund. I am regularly driven by colour, my own innate responses to colours and the potential to stimulate via intensity. States of amplification, hallucination and the hyper are all happy play zones for me. Whilst making these works, my imaginings have been towards psychological potentials of colours, psychic messaging of compositions and fantasies of juicy, shimmering psychedelic mirages. The titles for this suite of outcomes are deliberately visceral and explore colours as links to emotions, deep sensations, and the unconscious.”

Richard Lewer, BOMBORA GRIEF, 2025, acrylic on canvas in powder coated aluminium tray frame, 99 x 58.5 cm
Hugo Michell Gallery are proud to partner with Bird in Hand Winery for this opening event.

Hugo Michell Gallery acknowledges the Kaurna people as the traditional custodians of the Adelaide region, and that their cultural and heritage beliefs are still as important to the living Kaurna people today.

Please join us in celebrating the launch of these two exhibitions!
Hugo Michell Gallery Open: Christopher Zanko + Janet Laurence
11
Mar

Hugo Michell Gallery Open: Christopher Zanko + Janet Laurence

Please join us for the launch of Christopher Zanko’s ‘Navigating Necessities’ and Janet Laurence’s ‘Garden for an alchemist’ at Hugo Michell Gallery on Thursday 13th March, 6-8pm.
Christopher Zanko
Navigating Necessities
Christopher Zanko is an artist based in the Illawarra/Dharawal region of the New South Wales south coast. Taking great inspiration from the architecture, culture and history of his hometown and influenced heavily by Japanese woodblock carving and wood-relief printing, Zanko has configured a practice using these principles, but has importantly brought it to life through his own lens and lived experience.
About this series Zanko states: "I started making this body of work during the time my parents were selling my grandparents' old house in the Yarra Valley, east of Melbourne. This place was a constant throughout my life: school holidays spent exploring, and as I grew older, a sanctuary to escape to and reset... By carving these scenes into permanency, I create space to unpack and reflect on the memory of place, symbolising change through depictions of spring and autumn gardens, as well as the surrounding bush landscape. The process allows me to hold onto the ephemeral and transform the fleeting moments and feelings into something tactile, enduring."

Janet Laurence
Garden for an alchemist
“The force that through the green fuse drives the flower” (Dylan Thomas, 1933)
Janet Laurence is a prominent Sydney-based artist whose work is exhibited nationally and internationally. Her practice explores the complex and often conflicting relationship between humans and the natural world, particularly in the face of environmental challenges like climate change. Laurence creates immersive environments that investigate the interconnections between organic elements and natural systems, blending themes of ecological healing, communal loss, and the search for a deeper connection with the life forces of nature.

Pictyred: Janet Laurence in her Sydney studio for an interview with Vogue, 2019, photography by Jacquie Manning


Hugo Michell Gallery are proud to partner with Bird in Hand Winery for this opening event.


Hugo Michell Gallery acknowledges the Kaurna people as the traditional custodians of the Adelaide region, and that their cultural and heritage beliefs are still as important to the living Kaurna people today.


Please join us in celebrating the launch of these two exhibitions!
HUGO MICHELL GALLERY AT MELBOURNE ART FAIR
19
Feb

HUGO MICHELL GALLERY AT MELBOURNE ART FAIR

Hugo Michell Gallery are thrilled to return to Melbourne Art Fair 2025, presenting the work of two early career South Australian artists; Sam Gold and Zaachariaha Fielding, and Paul Yore as part of BEYOND 2025.


Sam Gold, Mmm I like your flow, humble little flow, 2025Stoneware porcelain and enamel, 102 x 36 x 11 cm irreg. Photography by Connor Patterson.

Sam Gold is an emerging ceramicist, who pushes the structural and conceptual capacity of clay. As objects, they materialise a kinship between Gold’s physical body, their psychological and emotional self, and the clay body, allowing Gold to explore states of futility, failure, resilience and grit, porousness yet inscrutability.


Zaachariaha Fielding, Untitled (672-24AS), 2024-25, acrylic and mixed media on Belgian linen, 199 x 294 cm, photography by Sam Roberts

Zaachariaha Fielding is a multi-disciplinary artist who hails from Mimili community on the APY Lands in far north South Australia. Fielding comes from a long line of multi-disciplinary artists and after a successful music career over the last decade, he now explores the visual language of his culture through painting.

Paul Yore’s installation ‘FUCK ME DEAD’, a vibrantly mosaiced hearse, upcycled and modified from an iconic Australian car, the ’70s Ford Fairlane, will be presented as part of Melbourne Art Fair’s 2025 BEYOND sector, curated by Anna Briers, Curator, Len Lye & Contemporary Art, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (Aotearoa), in collaboration with STATION.

Paul Yore, Fuck Me Dead (installation view, Carriageworks), 2022, mixed media assemblage comprising funeral hearse, found objects, glass, shells, LED lights, acrylic paint and plastic flooring, 592.5 x 379 x 149 cm

Melbourne Art Fair will be open from 20–23 February 2025 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Pictured (Top): Pictured: Zaachariaha Fielding, Untitled (671-24AS), 2024, acrylic and mixed media on Belgian linen, 166 x 151 cm, photography by Sam Roberts

 

Hugo Michell Gallery Open: Fiona McMonagle + Lucas Grogan
06
Feb

Hugo Michell Gallery Open: Fiona McMonagle + Lucas Grogan

Please join us for the launch of Fiona McMonagle’s ‘Eve’ and Lucas Grogan's ‘A Travel Guide’ at Hugo Michell Gallery on Thursday 6th February, 6-8pm.

Fiona McMonagle
Eve

Throughout history, women have been held to unreasonably high moral standards, with their actions scrutinised and vilified. Cast as scapegoats for society’s problems, this pattern dates back to foundational myths like Eve’s story, which framed her as the cause of humanity’s suffering. The French phrase “Cherchez la femme” embodies this mindset, implying that women are naturally disruptive, tempting, or at fault, perpetuating harmful stereotypes and scapegoating.
McMonagle’s new body of work, Eve, explores these dynamics, depicting women’s faces boldly and unapologetically, inspired by the confrontational format of mugshots.

Lucas Grogan
A Travel Guide

“Everywhere you go, there you are. But time and experience changes who you are and where you want to go next,” shares Grogan about his upcoming exhibition.
‘A Travel Guide’ is an exploration of time, labour, and experience. Two expansive quilts form a library of icons; symbols that have multiple different interpretations based the individual’s life experiences, cultures, and perspectives. Rotating sculptures of travel signposts point toward esoteric and existential places, both real and imagined.
 
Lucas Grogan, A Guide (with yellow tailed black cocktaoos), 2025, wood, polymer, acrylic, and motor, 85 x 25 x 25 cm 
Hugo Michell Gallery are proud to partner with Bird in Hand Winery for this opening event.
Please join us in celebrating the launch of these two exhibitions!
Hugo Michell Gallery acknowledges the Kaurna people as the traditional custodians of the Adelaide region, and that their cultural and heritage beliefs are still as important to the living Kaurna people today.
2025 Exhibition Program Announced
21
Jan

2025 Exhibition Program Announced

We are delighted to share our full 2025 exhibition program, please reach out to register your interest in any upcoming exhibitions. 

6 February – 8 March
Fiona McMonagle | Lucas Grogan

19 February – 23 February
MELBOURNE ART FAIR
Zaachariaha Fielding | Sam Gold | Paul Yore

13 March – 5 April
Christopher Zanko | Janet Laurence

10 April – 10 May
Richard Lewer | James Dodd

15 May – 14 June
Tony Garifalakis 

19 June – 19 July
Zaachariaha Fielding | Daniel To + Emma Aiston

24 July – 16 August 
Clara Adolphs | Drew Spangenberg

10 September – 14 September
SYDNEY CONTEMPORARY ART FAIR

25 September – 25 October
Buku Art Centre 

30 October – 29 November
Georgia Spain | Kate Mitchell

Fiona Roberts featured on front cover of Art Collector Magazine
17
Jan

Fiona Roberts featured on front cover of Art Collector Magazine

We’re thrilled that Fiona Roberts has been featured on the front cover the latest Art Collector Magazine for their ‘50 Things Collector’s should know’ issue!

About Fiona’s exhibition ‘Hereafter’ presented at Hugo Michell Gallery in 2024, Barnaby Smith writes: “The work of Fiona Roberts is an intense and demanding philosophical encounter, preoccupied as it is with nothing less than the human experience, mortality and how we experience death.”



Read the full article in the latest Art Collector Magazine, Issue 111.

Enquiries to mail@hugomichellgallery.com

Pictured: Fiona Roberts in Art Collector Magazine, issue 111, Jan-March 2025, front cover & pp. 170-171; Fiona Roberts’ ‘Hereafter’ at Hugo Michell Gallery, 2024, photography by Sam Roberts

Richard Lewer's 'Steve' body of work acquired by National Gallery of Australia
17
Jan

Richard Lewer's 'Steve' body of work acquired by National Gallery of Australia

We are thrilled to share that Richard Lewer’s 2024 body of work ‘Steve’ has been acquired by the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) and will be presented in the NGA’s collection display in 2025-26 before touring nationally.

Richard Lewer’s ‘Steve’ is a gentle exploration of the complexity of a family coming to terms with a dementia diagnosis. Through animation and a suite of paintings on domestic Laminex tabletops, this exhibition tells the story of man named Steve presented from the perspective of his family as they cope with the effects of his illness. In addition, the artist weaves his own personal story into the work with a group of paintings that look back on personal moments from Lewer’s own life.

Pictured: Richard Lewer’s ‘Steve’, 2023-24, acrylic paint on Laminex tabletops, dimensions variable; Richard Lewer, Steve [video], 2023-24, animation and super-8 footage, 4:39 mins, HD/4K.