Marlene Gilson OAM & Matthew Harris
After all

After all presents a selection of works from the past decade by revered senior artist and Wadawurrung Elder Marlene Gilson OAM, in dialogue with a series of new paintings by Matthew Harris whose practice draws reference from his mixed Koorie / European heritage. Gilson's practice is noteworthy for its efforts to overturn the colonial grasp on the past by reclaiming and re-contextualising the representation of historical events. Through this, she asserts the presence of First Nations peoples, before and after colonisation, on what always was and always will be Aboriginal Land. Favouring the ancestral lands of her people, and events that have occurred on their lands, as her preferred subject matter and context, Gilson's elaborately painted history paintings provide the counter to the historical representations that misrepresent such histories, through fictionalisation or erasure. 
 
Harris’ new series of paintings shares similar concerns with the reorientation of history narratives. In recent years, Harris has entwined traditional processes of Aboriginal pigment production with the western canon of minimal abstraction. In ways, this operates to invert late modernism’s adoption of Aboriginal practices as purely aesthetic forms of painterly abstraction, vanquishing their expressions of dreaming, of Country, and as culturally specific modes of storytelling. Instead, Harris corrupts the purported autonomy of minimalist abstraction to render depictions of Country, and to reveal and undermine structures of colonisation and its residual power differentials. Often employing dark humour, Harris plays the part of a destabiliser, agitating western art history, its predilections and institutions, to assert Aboriginal-centric worldviews.

–

Marlene Gilson OAM (born Warnambool, 1944) lives and works in Gordon, Wadawurrung Country, Victoria. Selected solo exhibitions include Binbeal, Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney, 2023; My Place – Before, Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney, 2021; Marlene Gilson, Biennale of Australian Art, Art Gallery of Ballarat, 2018; What If, Koorie Heritage Trust, Naarm Melbourne, 2017; Guraham – King William – His Country, Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka, Ballarat, 2015; Wadawurrung – Past, Present & Future (with Deanne Gilson), Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre, Melbourne Museum, Naarm Melbourne, 2014; and Welcome to our Country (Ngardang baap yarrang) – Mother and Daughter – Wathaurung (Wadawurrung) Dreaming, Art Gallery of Ballarat, 2012. 
 
Selected group exhibitions include Wayngurrla – To Make Good, Barwon Park Mansion, Winchelsea, 2026; 60th Biennale di Venezia: Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, Venice, Italy, 2024; Wurrdha Marra, National Gallery of Victoria, Naarm Melbourne, 2023; For Our Elders, Eureka Centre, Ballarat, 2023; Australiana – Designing A Nation, Bendigo Art Gallery, 2023; Change the World, National Gallery of Victoria, Naarm Melbourne, 2022; Deadly Narratives, Koorie Heritage Trust, Naarm Melbourne, 2021; Colony: Frontier Wars, National Gallery of Victoria, Naarm Melbourne 2018; The National Picture: The Art of Tasmania’s Black War, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, and Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, 2018; 21st Biennale of Sydney: Superposition, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2018; Sovereignty, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Naarm Melbourne, 2016; and 10th Anniversary Victorian Indigenous Art Awards, Art Gallery of Ballarat, 2015.
 
Marlene Gilson OAM is represented by Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney.

– 

Matthew Harris (born Wangaratta, 1991) lives and works in Naarm Melbourne. Selected solo include Stilhed, Futures, Naarm Melbourne, 2026; Overland, Wangaratta Art Gallery, Wangaratta, 2025; Essential Oils (with Tyrone Te Waa), Toi Tauranga Art Gallery, New Zealand, 2025; Stone After Stone, Futures, Naarm Melbourne, 2024; Sky without Stars, The Commercial, Sydney, 2024; The British Museum, Futures, Naarm Melbourne, 2023; Panopticon, Conners Conners, Naarm Melbourne, 2022; Spiritual Poverty (with Sarah Brassier), Gertrude Glasshouse, Naarm Melbourne, 2023; Doom, Futures, Melbourne Art Fair, Naarm Melbourne, 2022; Goo, Futures, Naarm Melbourne, 2021; The Simple Life, Galerie Pompom, Sydney, 2021; and Hell, Neon Parc, Naarm Melbourne, 2018.
 
Selected group exhibitions include the 18th Lyon Biennale: Passer d'un rêve à l'autre / To pass from one dream to another, Lyon, France, 2026; 2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Yield Strength, Art Gallery of South Australia and Samstag Museum of Art, Tarndanya Adelaide, 2026; All the World’s Memories, UNSW Galleries, Sydney, 2026; Unbecoming, La Trobe Art Institute, Bendigo, 2025; Kisses, The Commercial, Sydney, 2024; 8th Yokohama Triennale: Wild Grass: Our Lives, Yokohama Museum of Art, Japan, 2024; Between Waves, Australia Centre for Contemporary Art, Naarm Melbourne, 2023; Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Naarm Melbourne, 2022; and Choose Happiness, Murray Art Museum Albury, 2021.
 
Matthew Harris was in the Gertrude Studio Program from 2020-2023.
 
Matthew Harris is represented by Futures, Naarm Melbourne; and The Commercial, Sydney.