“. . . a life and power beyond the individual beliefs originally expressed.”
Seeing a Renaissance altarpiece in Canberra triggered the imagination of curator Milena Stojanovska, leading her on a two-year journey exploring images of faith and devotion in Western art. She comments that: “It was a really small object, but it just commanded the space. And it led me to think about religious objects not within a religious context, but how that kind of imagery has maintained power and communicated a visual language that contemporary artists have absorbed.”
Her research has culminated in New Religion, an exhibition featuring sixteen artists and fifty works across painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, and installation. Stojanovska sought to create a dialogue between historic exhibits loaned from institutions, including the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and Sydney’s Chau Chak Wing Museum, and contemporary artists commissioned in response to this religious imagery.
Nell, Guardians of the Eastern Dark, 2005, acrylic on canvas, 91.3 × 65.7cm / Photograph: Jenni Carter / © the artist / Courtesy the artist and STATION, Melbourne and Sydney
The collection spans historic works from sixteenth-century engravings by Albrecht Dürer and prints by William Blake from the 1800s, to Australian paintings from the 1950s by Modernist masters Justin O’Brien, Sydney Nolan, and Arthur Boyd.
The curator was unable to borrow the original altarpiece that inspired her due to its fragile condition, but instead secured a 1520s triptych altarpiece from the Cologne School. She remarks that “the triptych was made when we were starting to question the place of the church. And then Albert Dürer symbolises that stepping away from the church as a place of worship and looking at religion iconography as a way of exploring personal cosmology.”
Luke Thurgate, Let me down gently, 2022, charcoal on gallery wall, 270 × 350cm / Presented at NAS Gallery, Sydney / © the artist / Courtesy the artist and Ngununggula, New South Wales
The exhibition frames these works as part of ongoing visual language that continues today. Among the current crop of artists commissioned include Nell, Hayley Millar Baker, Brent Harris, and Drew Connor Holland.
Melbourne painter Gian Manik, known for paintings informed by Old Master traditions, creates richly textured figurative works that challenge and subvert colonial imagery. For New Religion he has painted an interpretation of Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, c.1490–1500, that examines gay pornography and its place in modern-day culture.
Alongside a traditional Russian Orthodox icon is a series by Tiwi Islands painter Johnathon World Peace Bush, who replicates religious icons, employing traditional jilamara body paint designs in ochres that critique the legacy of Christian missionaries on First Nations communities.
The exhibition moves from devotional imagery in the first room into personal iconography in the second, with striking textile sculptures and installations by Adelaide artist Julia Robinson that draw on ancient rites, folktales, and superstitions.
Arthur Boyd, The expulsion, 1947–8, oil on hardboard, 101.6 × 122cm (board), 112.7 × 133.2 × 5.5cm (frame) / Art Gallery of New South Wales, Purchased 1986 / © Reproduced with permission of Bundanon Trust / Photograph: Diana Panuccio / Image © Art Gallery of New South Wales
The third space has been recreated into a massive contemporary altar, with painter and mural artist Luke Thurgate drawing enormous frescoes directly onto the walls using charcoal.
New Religion concludes with two installations by collaborative duo Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro, who use collections of space junk and discarded technology to question contemporary forms of worship.
The exhibits demonstrate throughout how religious imagery maintains a life and power beyond the individual beliefs originally expressed.
As Milena Stojanovska remarks: “This show’s not actually trying to critique religion; it’s not trying to celebrate religion; it’s not trying to do anything as far as religion goes other than just look at how we interpret it.”
She concludes: “That’s what makes religion so interesting. Whatever century or millennium we’re in, it’s always a tool in helping us try and make sense of things. Whilst the show doesn’t have an explicit message, it’s about looking at ourselves. It’s a reflection on humankind and us trying to make sense of our place in this world and find meaning in it.”
Victoria Hynes is a visual arts wrtier and editor based in Sydney.
Ngununggula
27 June to 18 October 2026
New South Wales
Originally published in print – Art Almanac, July 2026 issue, pp. 18–22
