Janenne Eaton: Lines of Sight—Frame and Horizon

From 24 May, Geelong Gallery presents Janenne Eaton: Lines of Sight—Frame and Horizon, a major survey of one of Australia’s most critically acclaimed contemporary artists. Presented exclusively at Geelong Gallery, this retrospective exhibition offers a stunning encounter with Eaton’s bold paintings and installations across more than four decades of her practice.

A celebrated artist and teacher, Eaton has influenced generations of Australian artists. This long overdue survey exhibition explores Eaton’s engagement with environmental, historical, and political concerns, and the impact of a globalised, digital world. Her powerful images contemplate the intangible complexities of the human condition and incorporate key signifiers of our consumer-led, information-obsessed society to deliver commentary on how we live and our changing relationships to time, space and place. Eaton’s practice remains as urgent and thought-provoking as ever.

Curated by former Geelong Gallery Director & CEO Jason Smith (now Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia), the exhibition will be installed across five galleries and will include Eaton’s award-winning painting from the 1998 Geelong Contemporary Art Prize, Screens and reflections: The Never Never.

Smith said: ‘I have had the enormous pleasure of working closely with eminent Melbourne-based artist Janenne Eaton to curate this 45-year retrospective. Eaton is a highly influential artist whose work is critically engaged with some of the most pressing humanitarian and cultural debates shaping our lives today. Eaton’s paintings and installations potently articulate her environmental, social, and political concerns, and the impact of a globalised, digital ecology on the individual, on communities, and on Nature.’

Janenne Eaton said: ‘Distilling four decades of my practice into a single exhibition offers an illuminating sense of fulfilment; one which obliges a confrontation with oneself, revealing connections between works, times, and ideas.’

Humphrey Clegg, incoming Director & CEO of Geelong Gallery said: ‘Presenting the work of living artists is some of the most exciting and engaging work a cultural institution can do. Geelong Gallery is delighted to share this first retrospective of Janenne Eaton’s work and provide our audience the opportunity to trace the formal and conceptual evolution of the artist’s practice across her career.’

Janenne Eaton: Lines of Sight—Frame and Horizon will be accompanied by a catalogue including new writing on the artist’s practice.

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