The most ambitious exhibition to date of work by Patricia Piccinini will open exclusively at Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) next March, becoming GOMA’s largest ever solo exhibition by an Australian artist.

Premier and Minister for Arts Annastacia Palaszczuk said that she was proud to partner with GOMA to deliver another iconic exhibition.

‘GOMA has established itself as a major player in the contemporary art world and this new exhibition by the renowned Patricia Piccinini will further cement Queensland’s international reputation,’ Ms Palaszczuk said.

Deputy Premier and Member for South Brisbane Jackie Trad, who today launched ‘Patricia Piccinini: Curious Affection’, said the exhibition would feature more than 50 new and recent works by the globally renowned artist.

‘The Palaszczuk Government is passionate about the arts and supporting our local creative community and we have invested $10.8 million over four years to bring blockbuster exhibitions like this one to GOMA,’ Ms Trad said.

‘This funding brought the record-breaking ‘Marvel: Creating the Cinematic Universe’ exhibition to Brisbane and this expansive exhibition of Ms Piccinini’s work will also be a must-see for lovers of contemporary art.

‘Occupying all of the Gallery’s ground floor galleries, including the Children’s Art Centre, the exhibition will include sculpture, photography, video, drawing and installation, as well as never-before-seen commissions including entirely immersive environments.

‘The exhibition also considers the challenging world of science and genetic engineering developments and nature, and how humanity will face its future.

‘Ms Piccinini is one of the world’s most popular contemporary artists and it is incredibly exciting that GOMA has been able to work with her to produce this exclusive-to-Queensland exhibition featuring major new works.’

Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) Director Chris Saines said Patricia Piccinini was one of the most interesting Australian artists working today.

‘Piccinini explores the interrelationship of humanity and the natural world, and the social and moral impact of scientific research, genetics and biotechnology on people, animals and our planet,’ he said.

‘Working with a skilled team of collaborators and computer technology, Patricia’s art collapses the boundaries between reality and artifice to create captivating environments populated by strangely compelling, often hybridised, startlingly realistic sculptures, that are foreign and strange looking, yet seemingly familiar.

‘The artworks in the GOMA exhibition will deliberately challenge our conceptions about what it means to be human and the power of empathy.’

The exhibition will run from 24 March to 5 August 2018 and will feature some of Piccinini’s most recognisable life-like sculptures, among them The Bond 2016, a woman lovingly cradling an ambiguous creature, along with Big Mother 2005, The Comforter 2010, and The Carrier 2012.

It will include a large-scale, newly commissioned inflatable sculpture suspended in GOMA’s atrium – a continuation of ideas the artist explored in the controversial hot air balloon work titled The Skywhale, a commission that marked the Centenary of Canberra in 2013.

The GOMA exhibition will also feature a major new installation The Field, a landscape of some 3000 genetically modified flower sculptures that will draw visitors into a vast, multisensory environment.

For more information or to purchase tickets to 'Patricia Piccinini: Curious Affection' visit www.qagoma.qld.gov.au.

Biography

Patricia Piccinini was born in Sierra Leone in 1965 and grew up in Australia. The Melbourne-based artist represented Australia at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 with We Are Family, an exhibition that also toured to Tokyo and Bendigo. Her other solo museum surveys have included ComCiência, CCBB Sao Paulo in 2015, touring to CCBB Brasilia, CCBB Rio de Janeiro, and CCBB Belo Horizonte in 2016; Relativity, Galway International Art Festival (2015); Hold Me Close To Your Heart, Arter Space For Art, Istanbul (2011); Once Upon a Time, Art Gallery of South Australia (2011); Relativity, Art Gallery of Western Australia (2010); Evolution at Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (2009); (tiernas) Criaturas/(tender) Creatures at Artium, Vitoria-Gasteiz (Spain, 2007); Hug: Recent Works by Patricia Piccinini, Frye Museum, Seattle, and Des Moines Art Centre, Des Moines (USA, 2007); In Another Life, Wellington City Gallery, Wellington (NZ, 2006); Call of the Wild, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2002); and Retrospectology, Australian Centre of Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2002).

Piccinini’s work has also been featured in Queensize at Me, Berlin (2015), Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2013), Medicine and Art, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2009), The 2nd Asian Art Biennale, Taipei (2009), Global Feminisms, Brooklyn Museum, New York (2007), Uneasy Nature, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, USA (2006), Becoming Animal, MASS MoCA, USA (2005), Bienal de La Habana, Cuba (2003) Face Up, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2003), Sydney Biennale (2002), Liverpool Biennale (2002) Berlin Biennale (2001) and Gwangju Biennale, Korea (2000).

In 2014 Piccinini was awarded the Melbourne Art Foundation Visual Arts Award and in 2016 she received a Doctor of Visual and Performing Arts (Honora Causa) from the Victorian College of the Arts.