Dates
21 JUL – 19 AUG

Women Painting Women
Realist portrait painting by Australian female artists.

Women Painting Women is a major exhibition of portraiture oil painting and features recent works by Sally Ryan (NSW), Megan Roodenrys (SA), Dagmar Cyrulla, Vicki Sullivan, Fiona Bilbrough, Raelene Sharp and Heather Ellis (all VIC).

Giving insights into the relationships between the artists and their sitters (among these Yorta-Yorta soprano Deborah Cheetham, actress Sigrid Thornton, domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty and labour senator Penny Wong), the works touch on a variety of contemporary themes while revealing personal stories of reward and loss.

Taking its inspiration from the realist painting movement in the United States which was,The Women painting Women movement arose out of online discussions about how contemporary women artists are handling women as subjects.
Inspired by these discussions but failing to find any single, comprehensive online resource cataloguing contemporary women artists painting the female figure, artists Alia El-Bermani, Diane Feissel and Sadie Valeri established the Women painting Women website site in March of 2009; since then the site has featured the work of hundreds of women painters from around the globe. Out of the overwhelming positive response to the website grew a desire to create opportunities for women artists from diverse locations to gather and share inspiration and technique, and to promote and exhibit their work .
The Australian exhibition celebrates the talent of female portrait artists and the women who sit for them, and is the second instalment at Burrinja after its successful show in 2016.

“This exhibition uniquely honours the female spirit – of realist painters and their sitters” – artist Vicki Sullivan

Join us for the official opening of the exhibition on Sunday, 22 July, at 3pm. The exhibition will be opened by Carmel O’Connor, President, Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors.

Vicki Sullivan Painting