Exhibition Dates: 17 April – 23 May 2026
Opening Event: Saturday 18 April, 5 – 7pm | Artist Talk: Marian Drew in conversation with Alison Kubler, Editor in Chief of VAULT Magazine, from 4 – 5pm. RSVP.
Gallery Walk Through: Saturday 2 May, 2 – 4pm. RSVP.
Marking more than two decades since the inception of Marian Drew’s Australiana Still Life series, Wild Tender Close assembles 46 significant works from the collection, curated by the artist herself.
Nationally and internationally acclaimed, the series recontextualises the still life genre through ornate yet haunting images of deceased fauna found in Australia by a community of contributors. Through intimate portraits and carefully composed arrangements, Drew conveys a deep care and reverence for these creatures—lives often dismissed as mere ‘roadkill.’ Essay writer Pippa Milne eloquently states, “Drew’s images, in their stillness, offer a provocation: to consider animals not as peripheral to human life, but as central to it—as participants, as knowledge holders, as beings whose lives intersect with us but need not serve us.” The exhibition is further anchored by Twelve Wishes, a major work spanning 7.5 metres, making its Brisbane debut.
Although realised over a period of two decades, these works feel newly urgent amid escalating existential threats such as climate change and habitat loss. In bringing together these 46 photographs, Wild Tender Close invites audiences to reconsider Australiana Still Life, uncovering renewed meaning and moments of quiet solace.
