About

I am a visual artist working in Australia. My practice explores the potential of art to offer new imaginary spaces for encountering the metaphysical, or spiritual. Most often, my work is two-dimensional and abstract. While based in Australia, my work has taken on a cross-cultural character since spending time in Taiwan, China, Indonesia, Nepal, & Japan.

This website is designed to offer you an overview. I have designed different ‘rooms’, with each room showing a coherent series of work often connected to an exhibition. It might explore a particular theme, or be about particular materials. Sometimes the works were produced over a short, intensive period, sometimes they are part of an ongoing stream over years.   Between 2019 - 2024 I was an Adjunct Research Fellow at MADA, Monash University, researching the question ‘What is Prayer?’ During this time, I interacted with people from a variety of religious traditions to better understand prayer practices more broadly. This research resulted in a solo exhibition at Galerie Soemardja, Bandung, Indonesia, while on residency at the Instutute of Technology Bandung 2022; and a group show at Galerie Salihara, Jakarta, Indonesia in 2024 that I curated and exhibited in. Bringing back all the works to Australia the research period culminated a 2025 solo exhibition at Fortyfive Downstairs, Melbourne.

I have a passion for ink and paper which is plainly visible and ongoing. I was fortunate to have an extended residency at the National Taiwan University of Arts. in 2018 where I researched Chinese ink & paper, and traditional Chinese landscape painting. I was intrigued to explore how the spiritual was embedded in the Chinese spatial, material and aesthetic visual traditions.  This work developed from earlier work produced as part of my practice-led doctorate at the School of Art and Design at the Australian National University called The Metaphysics of Space. I used European inks and papers as well as acrylic paints on linen to explore the spatial traditions of historic European religious art through abstraction.

Overall, I aim to make contemplative, ambiguous compositions that invite the viewer to pause, and hopefully ponder existential questions, supplying cues to prompt without presuming any neat answers. I hope you enjoy the work. You can always contact me on egwhateley@icloud.com