newy.com.au – A major survey of globally recognised Newcastle-based artist Angela Tiatia’s 20-year career will open at Newcastle Art Gallery in September, alongside the NSW gallery debut of her video portrait of the Matildas.
Angela Tiatia: Muse will be the largest presentation of the Sāmoan/Australian artist’s work to date, bringing together video, photography and installation pieces from public and private collections across Australia.
Newcastle Art Gallery director Lauretta Morton OAM said the world-first exhibition would explore Tiatia’s poetic and politically incisive considerations of climate, capitalism and colonisation.
“Angela Tiatia is one of the most vital voices in contemporary Australian art, and we’re incredibly proud to present the first major survey of her career here in Newcastle, the city she now calls home,” Ms Morton said.
“We are thrilled to pair this survey with her extraordinary 2025 portrait, The Matildas, giving our audiences a rare chance to see the wide breadth of her incredible practice in one place.”
The ticketed exhibition traces Tiatia’s career from early works in which she turned the camera on herself through to large-scale productions featuring ensemble casts.
Works include Hibiscus rosa sinensis, 2010, which Tiatia regards as her first major work as a professional artist, and The pearl, 2021, commissioned by the Art Gallery of New South Wales in response to an exhibition of works by French artist Henri Matisse. Narcissus, 2019, uses a cast of 40 to reinterpret the Greco-Roman myth of a young man who falls in love with his reflection, examining global selfie culture fuelled by social media.
Tiatia said reviewing two decades of work had allowed her to reflect on the questions that continued to shape her practice.
“While each work responds to a particular moment, together they speak to a sustained engagement with systems of power and the complexities of our shared histories,” she said.
“It’s a privilege to present this exhibition in Newcastle, and to share it with audiences alongside The Matildas, a work that celebrates collective strength and the power of representation.”
The Matildas, 2025, will be shown free to the public in its first gallery presentation outside the National Portrait Gallery. Filmed across three continents, five cities and seven shoots, the 23-minute moving-image portrait features all 23 players from the CommBank Matildas FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 squad, including Newcastle’s Emily van Egmond and Clare Wheeler.
National Portrait Gallery director Bree Pickering said the work celebrated a team that had transformed Australia.
“In 2023, the Matildas brought us together and encouraged millions of Australians who didn’t believe sport was for them to get out on the pitch and cheer from the stands,” Ms Pickering said.
“Angela’s tender and powerful approach to the depiction of women through the lens created a portrait of 23 extraordinary athletes and one team. We are thrilled to share The Matildas with audiences at the Newcastle Art Gallery.”
Tiatia has exhibited throughout Australia and internationally, including in the United States, Germany, South America, New Zealand, London and collateral exhibitions of the Venice Biennale in Italy. She won the Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize in 2018, and her work is held by institutions including the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, National Gallery of Victoria and Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
Angela Tiatia: Muse will run from 26 September 2026 to 7 February 2027. It will open alongside the City of Newcastle’s flagship New Annual festival, which will present 10 days of art, music, theatre and performance from 25 September to 4 October.
Tickets will go on sale on Friday 31 July through the Newcastle Art Gallery website, when the full New Annual program will also be unveiled.
