Australian Women Artists

Australian Women Artists
 The podcast
 
Ep 90 Jude Rae
 
Jude Rae is one of Australia's most respected painters.
She’s an artist who has spent over four decades looking very, very hard at the things most of us walk straight past — jars, bottles, gas cylinders, fire extinguishers, empty foyers — and turning them into paintings of extraordinary stillness and presence. 
Jude was born in Sydney and was the daughter of realist painter David Rae. In fact, both her father and Grandmother trained at Julian Ashton Art School...and in 1968 Jude herself joined classes there. And, having done the sums, I calculated that she was 12 years old when this occurred!
Jude went on to study art and architecture of the Renaissance at the University of Sydney and undertook postgraduate study at COFA and then spent over a decade in New Zealand where she completed a Masters at Canterbury University. NZ is, as a result, a place she calls her second home. 
Jude has twice won the Portia Geach Memorial Award, she’s won the Bulgari Art Award in 2016, has been a four-time finalist in the Archibald Prize, three of those times being Highly Commended. Her portraits hang in Parliament House, the High Court and the National Portrait Gallery. And in 2025 she won the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
She has a very special place in the Australian art canon.
 
 
To hear our conversation, head to wherever you find your podcasts and search under Australian Women Artists...or head to the link in my bio.
 
Jude is represented by Philip Bacon Gallery in Brisbane and Two Rooms, Auckland NZ
Images
1.   JR by Maria Stoljar courtesy JR
2.   SL 536, 2026 oil on linen (all paintings in these images are OOL) 71 x 61
3.   SL 464, 2022, 122 x 138
4.   SL 466, 2022, 112 x 138
5.   #540, 2026, 41 x 46
6.   SL 532, 2025, 41 x 46
7.   SL 527, 2026, 46 x 56

Australian Women Artists
 
The podcast
 
Ep 89 Louise Weaver
 
Louise Weaver’s superb work asks us to look at the natural world...a little differently. 
 She has spent much of her career exploring the relationship between nature, culture and our often-complicated attempts to represent the world around us. 
 Working across sculpture, installation, textiles, painting and mixed media, Louise is perhaps best known for her extraordinary reimagining of animals and the natural environment. 
 Her works can be playful and beautiful...and slightly disconcerting. They seem to ask questions about extinction, conservation and human intervention.
 Her work is held in many significant public and private collections including the British Museum, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Queensland Art Gallery, National Gallery of Victoria, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, National Gallery of Australia, Monash University Collection, Melbourne, Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand and Artbank, Australia. 
 
We are having this conversation in the Art Gallery of NSW where Louise has works in two significant exhibitions:
1.   the Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial; and
2.   Super Nature.
 
Louise is represented by @darrenknightgallery
 
Images supplied by LW and AGNSW
1.   LW
2.   Taking a chance on love, 2003
3.   It would seem that eyes can live without hearts (Oracle Fox), 2005
4.   From the House of Fabius Rufus, 2008
5.   Rogue Antler, 2007
6.   Standing wave resonance, 2025
7.   Rocking stone (to become the sea), 2025

Australian Women Artists
 
The podcast
 
Ep 88 Emily Ferretti
 
 Emily Ferretti is a Melbourne-based painter whose still-life and landscape images move between representation and abstraction. The importance of feeling and emotion becomes obvious looking at her work. 
 She grew up on a property in country Victoria, trained at the Victorian College of the Arts, and has since built a career via residencies at Gertrude Contemporary in Melbourne, the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, and Greene Street Studio in New York. 
 Her monotype series Shifting Landscapes saw her selected as a finalist in the Ramsay Art Prize at the Art Gallery of South Australia, and this year she begins a new chapter with representation at Chalk Horse in Sydney, alongside her long-standing gallery, Sophie Gannon, in Melbourne.
 We spoke about a number of things. I was particularly interested in the evolution of her subject matter and the importance of her experience at TAFE before she got to VCA, how she ensured her momentum was maintained even just after leaving art college, the collegiate atmosphere amongst other artists and how that propelled her forward. Also the surprising affect a residency in Paris had on her art. It was surprising to me anyway. We also discussed how she broke into representation by a gallery (Sophie Gannon).
 
 
To hear our conversation head to wherever you get your podcasts and search Australian Women Artists. 
 
Emily is represented by Sophie Gannon in Melbourne and Chalk Horse in Sydney
 
 
Images 
1.   EF via Chalk Horse website
2.   Afternoon Light, 2025 ink and watercolour on paper 107 x 77.5 (Finalist R & M McGivern Prize, 2026)

Australian Women Artists
 
The podcast
 
Ep 87 Sally Ross
 
Sally Ross is an intellectually captivating painter who works between hypnotic landscapes and psychological portraiture. 
 Sally has spent over three decades developing a distinctive visual language defined by flattened, patterned surfaces, cool palettes, and a deep dialogue with art history. 
 After eight formative years living in France, (amongst other things, running an artists’ squat in an abandoned seventeenth-century hospice) and exhibiting across Europe and America, she returned to Melbourne to establish a studio practice. 
 A six-time Archibald Prize finalist whose portrait The Huxleys was selected for the historic Archie 100 tour. 
 Sally has work held in major public collections including the National Gallery of Victoria and the National Portrait Gallery.
 But it’s the experiences and lessons she’s learnt along the way that were absorbing to me...and no doubt would be valuable to those artists starting their journey. An enjoyable conversation. She’s fabulous.
 
 
Head to wherever you get your podcasts and search Australian Women Artists. 
 
Sally is represented by Smith & Singer, Melbourne
& Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney
 
Images
1.   SR by Mel Savage
2.   Autoportrait, 2021 (Archibald finalist) oil on board 130 x 110
3&4 The Huxleys, 2018 (Archibald finalist) oil on wood panel 130x110
5. SR with the Huxleys
6. Riverbed grevillea, 2025, oil on board, 130 x 110

Australian Women Artists
 The podcast
 
Ep 86 Elizabeth Barnett
 
 
Elizabeth Barnett is a painter and printmaker who also utilises textiles and pottery. Her still life and interior paintings have become instantly recognisable — plant-filled nooks, stacked books, jugs and vases, all rendered in a distinct palette that reflects the season. 
 She has a deep reverence for the everyday. From her early training in the rigorous world of printmaking to lush, translucent paintings on stretched linen, and eventually to thickly layered oil works in her bushland studio. 
 She is also an incredible community builder, having co-founded Melbourne's iconic Schoolhouse Studios, a massive, not-for-profit creative hub. 
 Today, working from her home studio in the Macedon Ranges, Elizabeth continues to celebrate the gentle, wondrous beauty of daily life while acting as a passionate advocate for female representation in the arts.
 “Her subjects do not sit flat upon the canvas, but instead reach up from it, enlivened by the wild and natural world. This liveliness belies the ‘stillness’ of still life painting and along with Barnett’s painterly gestures of shadow, line and colour creates a visual dynamism reaches beyond tradition.”
 
 
To have a listen to our conversation, head to the link in my bio or search Australian Women Artists wherever you find your podcasts. 
 
Elizabeth is represented by Flinders Lane Gallery in Melbourne. 
 
 
Images supplied by artists
 
1.   EB
2.   Nocturne Arrangement 2026 oil on linen 215 x 153
3.   Floribunda and Gwen 2026 oil on linen 81 x 91
4.   Nocturne 2024 oil on linen 153 x 122
5 & 6 installation shots