Braving Time: Contemporary Art in Queer Australia
EXHIBITIONS
Braving Time: Contemporary Art in Queer Australia curated by Richard Perram OAM
3 February – 18 March 2023
NAS Galleries
Monday to Saturday
11am – 5pm
Free admission
Artists
Tony Albert, Brook Andrew, Liam Benson, Vivienne Binns, Leigh Bowery, Gary Carsley, Michelle Collocott, Peter Cooley, Christine Dean, Karla Dickens, Todd Fuller, Amos Gebhardt, Tina Havelock Stevens, Brenton Heath-Kerr, Kate Just, Deborah Kelly, MO’JU, Clinton Naina, Nell, Claudia Nicholson, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, Emily Parsons-Lord, Troye Sivan, Ali Tahayori, Salote Tawale, Renjie Teoh, Athena Thebus, Dr Christian Thompson AO, Tim Silver, Matthew van Roden, and William Yang.
Image: Amos Gebhardt, Family Portrait, 2020
Braving time is a queer exhibition that celebrates the work of artists who identify as part of the Australian LGBTIQA+ community. This significant exhibition has been curated by Richard Perram OAM for the National Art School in celebration of Sydney WorldPride in 2023. The artists represented in the exhibition celebrate the diverse voices of LGBTIQA+ people in contemporary Australia society, reflecting the breath of genders and sexualities within the community, including artists who identify as lesbian, gay, transgender, inter-sex, asexual and non-binary.
The artists present artworks that explore queerness in ways that are direct and indirect through historical and contemporary artworks that are critical, experimental and political, connecting to our contemporary culture. Together these works instigate conversations about queer experience; what it is and what it means to be queer in Australia today.
Athena Thebus, Bunny, 2021 (photographer: Zan Wimberley)
The Australian LGBTIQA+ community naturally reflects the cultural diversity of Australian contemporary society and this is mirrored in the artists selected. Central to the exhibition are works by Australian Indigenous artists Karla Dickens and Tony Albert. Artists from diverse cultural heritages include William Yang and Renjie Teoh, Claudia Nicholson, Salote Tawale, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran sitting alongside artists of Anglo-European heritage.
The key themes and connections that flow and overlap through this exhibition are rich and complex and represent issues that have been and remain central, to LGBTQIA+ lived experience including Our Queer Ancestors, Queer Worthies, Death and History, Feminist Expression, Family and Community, Maleness and Power, Humour, Gender and Sexuality.
Together the artists in Braving Time acknowledge the many struggles, the deep sadnesses as well as the triumphs of Australia’s LGBTQIA+ communities over time. The exhibition highlights that queerness is intersectional and it creates parallel conversations about the new histories that are emerging and leading debate, whilst capturing the optimism of change, of acceptance and the pure joy that will be felt by all during the Sydney WorldPride celebrations in 2023.
