Thea Anamara Perkins

Thea Anamara Perkins’s painting engages portraiture as a site of representation and assertion. Drawing from family photographs, she selects intimate moments that carry emotional and historical weight, translating them into compositions that move between the personal, the political and activism. Her work addresses how First Nations people are seen and how images circulate, insisting on forms of self-representation grounded in family and community experience. Through a careful attention to gesture and expression, her paintings foreground tenderness as a force that shapes memory, visibility and cultural continuity.

The Biennale de Lyon acknowledges all First Nations peoples of Australia, their Traditional Custodians of the lands, and Elders past and present. We honour the enduring strength, diversity, and richness of First Nations artistic and cultural practices. We recognise First Nations peoples as Australia's first artists, whose creative traditions have been sustained across millennia and continue to shape the Nation's cultural landscape today.

In collaboration with Fondation OPALE
With the support of the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body
This project is supported by Lisa Fox through the Foundation for Franco-Australian Cultural Exchanges (FACEF).