Seeing Things

Curated by Daniel Mudie Cunningham

22 March - 3 August 2025

To ‘see things’ is to conjure apparitions, imagine possibilities, and entertain hallucination. The meaning we place on things becomes as elastic as the image itself when we view the world and its saturation of visual culture through a shadowy lens.

Images have long been suspicious. Today, digital images and AI have exploded pictures into an infinite sum of immeasurable parts. But the Surrealists were living proof that artists have long tapped into dreams and the unconscious. Romancing the unknown and uncanny sides of life is what art does best.

Seeing Things draws together works from the collection alongside newly acquired video works and loaned collages by Shoalhaven-based artist Wade Marynowsky. Each of these works offer disquieting narratives of everyday life as a waking dream, a vantage point for seeing with eyes closed.

Artists: Drew Bickford, Stephen Birch, Pat Brassington, Peter Booth, Nici Cumpston, Amanda Davies, Tom Dion, Jutta Feddersen, John Forrest, David Griggs, Brent Harris, John Havilah, Anita Johnson, Madeleine Kelly, Daniel Kojta, Anna Kristensen, Lindy Lee, Mandy Martin, Wade Marynowsky, Joan Meats, Mai Nguyễn-Long, Susan Norrie, Gareth Sansom, Laurens Tan, Ken Unsworth.

Presented by Wollongong Art Gallery.

Related events

Image: Wade Marynowsky, Rainbow Merman, production still from The Beach Bum, 2023. HD video, audio, 2 min. Courtesy of the artist.