Catalogue
2025
A Fictional Retrospective: Gertrude’s First Decade 1985 – 1995
8 February–23 March 2025
Gertrude Contemporary, Preston South
Authors
Sue Cramer & Emma Nixon
Past is Prologue is a year-spanning program marking and reflecting on forty years of Gertrude. Across four interrelated exhibitions, contributing curators will chart the history of this organisation and its community, and commission new works by leading Australian visual artists.
On the occasion of A Fictional Retrospective: Gertrude’s First Decade 1985 – 1995, curated by Sue Cramer and Emma Nixon, Gertrude is pleased to publish the first edition of a curatorial publication series to coincide with the year-long program.
Price: $8 (including GST)
Exhibiting Artists
Howard Arkley, Hany Armanious, Stephen Bram, Angela Brennan, Sandra Bridie, Janet Burchill, Jon Campbell, Tony Clark, Brett Colquhoun, Destiny Deacon, Mikala Dwyer, Carolyn Eskdale, Diena Georgetti, Matthys Gerber, Michael Graf, Melinda Harper, Gail Hastings, Raafat Ishak, David Jolly, Mathew Jones, Rosemary Laing, Anne-Marie May, Elizabeth Newman, Rose Nolan, David Noonan, Louise Paramor, Rosslynd Piggott, Vivienne Shark LeWitt, Nike Savvas, Robyn Stacey, Kathy Temin, Anne Zahalka and Constanze Zikos
With curatorial writing by Sue Cramer and Emma Nixon. Coordinated by Brigid Moriarty, edited by Mark Feary and Sharon Flynn, designed by Narelle Brewer, printed by Adams Print.
ISBN: 978-1-876817-08-4
A Fictional Retrospective: Gertrude's First Decade 1985-1995
Curated by Sue Cramer & Emma Nixon
Exhibition Catalogue
A Fictional Retrospective: Gertrude’s First Decade 1985-1995 takes its title from a phrase coined by artist Sandra Bridie in 1991, offering a speculative lens on the artists and works that shaped Gertrude’s formative years. Featuring more than 30 artists, the exhibition brings together works that were either exhibited at Gertrude or made during a studio residency between 1985-1995. In cases where such works were inaccessible or no longer exist, substitutes or indicative examples are presented in their place.
This account of Gertrude’s history is necessarily incomplete–a fiction, of sorts–woven from excerpts, fragments and recollections of the organisation’s early years. Many of the exhibited artworks have rarely been seen in forty years, yet retain contemporary relevance through their diverse explorations of cultural and artistic identities; painting both figurative and abstract; the staged and cinematic.
