Strange ways is the first major survey exhibition of Anne Wallace, and includes works from the early 1990s through to the current day. Born and raised in Brisbane in the 1970s, her highly accomplished figurative paintings are as much about the textual as the pictorial.
Wallace's paintings are at times difficult to look at. She combines the familiar with the unfamiliar, capturing a tension between the real and the imagined to create slightly awkward moments. Like any good 'story', there is sexual and social confusion, vulnerability and violence, alienation and loneliness, feelings of the abject, or fantasies of power and revenge. Wallace's paintings have an uncanny ability to tap into a shared psyche, drawing upon the language of pop culture.
Bringing together more than 80 works from public and private collections, and spanning three decades, this is the most comprehensive survey of Wallace's practice to date. The exhibition will include a screening program of films selected by the artist, and is accompanied by a major publication, featuring new essays by Gillian Brown, Francis Plagne and Vanessa Van Ooyen.
Strange Ways will travel to Art Gallery of Ballarat (28 March – 14 June 2020) and Samstag Museum of Art in Adelaide (3 July – 11 September 2020).
The QUT Art Museum is open Tuesdays to Sundays (Closed Mondays & Public Holidays).
Anne WALLACE
The Go-Betweens 2001
oil on canvas
QUT Art Collection. Purchased 2019