Us

Gillian Bencke

26 July - 14 September 2025  |  Gallery 2

Newcastle based artist Gillian Bencke’s work re-imagines commonly collected items - ephemera, keepsakes, heirlooms from personal and institutional collections through a textile-based practice. Interested in how individuals and communities collect, preserve and exhibit artefacts, her work examines how we, as a society, define and reinforce culture and assign value and meaning to material objects.

Working across sculpture and installation, Us brings together a body of new work that uses the language of museum display to examine our motivation and determination to collect, preserve and express our identities through personal and cultural artefacts. Just as museums archive relics of the past, we too adorn ourselves with symbols that speak of who we are today.

 

 
 

Gillian Bencke, Array, 2024, detail, silk, cotton, polyester, glass beads, sequins, pearls, found objects, dimensions variable. Us, installation view, Wangaratta Art Gallery, 2025. Photos Jeremy Weihrauch.