Judith Wright in MCA Collection: Eight Artists | 5.04.23

Artwork: Relative Conversations, Judith Wright, 2006, synthetic polymer paint on Japanese paper, 5 parts: 198 x 198cm each. Image courtesy of Museum of Contemporary Art. Photograph: Jessica Maurer.

MCA Collection: Eight Artists presents recent acquisitions alongside MCA Collection favourites and works shown at the MCA for the first time. Judith Wright’s work Relative Conversations is included alongside other works by eight significant Australian artists represented in the MCA Collection.

The works in Eight Artists reveal a shared interest in seriality and repetition. Several also share a compelling relationship to the body and to movement, from performance to the gestural nature of the artistic process. Drawing upon diverse cultural narratives, many of the works are underpinned by significant cultural knowledge, including practices of dance and ceremony, and an honouring of deeply personal kinship relations and women’s stories.

Relative Conversations by represented artist Judith Wright is a suite of five large paintings on paper, pinned to the wall so they move with the subtle reverberations of sound and fluctuations of air in the room.  Their rich, fleshy surfaces are built up through layers of beeswax and pigment, offering a sensory engagement that beckons the senses of touch and smell, as well as of sight.

Relative Conversations is on display on Level 1 in MCA between 17 March - 20 August 2023.