LOOKAFTERING

Trio group show, April 2025, Michael Reid Southern Highlands, Berrima NSW

‘In Lookaftering, a group exhibition featuring Anthea Stead, Elena Larkin, and Miranda Hampson, the act of care takes on layered meanings. Each artist draws on their intimate connections to place, memory, and culture to explore the creative and ecological imperatives of ‘looking after’. As Annie Dillard once wrote, “There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by.” This exhibition presents three artists who, through their work, strive to create not only good art but lives imbued with meaning, care, and attention to the natural world.

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Elena Larkin’s layered impressions of the Australian bush bring an immersive and dynamic perspective to the theme of care. Working in gouache, she captures the ephemeral rhythms of light and shadow in the forest, painting the sensory experiences of being surrounded by nature. Her dappled, pointillistic markings reflect the vitality of the natural world, shaped by her childhood on Bundjalung Land. Larkin’s works suggest that to look after the land is to embrace its beauty in all its chaos and impermanence, a reminder of our deep, reciprocal relationship with the environments we inhabit.’