Surface Tension: The New Age of Painting
Widely considered one of the oldest art mediums, painting has experienced a powerful revival in contemporary practice. In our era of digital images and algorithms, artists are returning to the tactile immediacy of paint: the haptic gesture of the hand, the presence of the body, and the expressive possibilities of pigment on surface.
From renewed explorations of the human figure to culturally rooted storytelling, painting is evolving in surprising and dazzling ways, pushing the medium into new territory. This lively discussion charts painting’s return to prominence and looks at the ways in which artists are reimagining the historic medium in their own unique ways, spotlighting three key artists featured in this year’s fair.
Neha Kale | Host
Justin Paton | Speaker
Natasha Walsh | Speaker
Lottie Consalvo | Speaker
Gregory Hodge | Speaker
Each talk runs for approximately 45 minutes, followed by 15 minutes of Q&A. A valid ticket to Sydney Contemporary 2026 is required for entry to this talk. Buy tickets online here.
About the Speakers
Neha Kale is a widely acclaimed writer of criticism, journalism, and essay. Her work focuses on art, contemporary culture, and society, exploring overlooked narratives and the way history and power shape individual experience. She has contributed to The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, ArtReview, Vogue, BBC, Griffith Review, The Sydney Morning Herald and The World of Interiors among many other national and international publications, and has presented at the Sydney Opera House, Melbourne Writers’ Festival and more. She is the former editor of VAULT magazine and editor-at-large at Art Guide Australia. Her first book Foreign Return: On Art and Inhabitation is out this month with NewSouth.
Justin Paton is Chief Curator, Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Natasha Walsh is an alchemist and artist. Known for her transformation of pigments on copper surfaces, Walsh’s work acutely observes delicately-painted figures that emerge from the surface. ‘From the moment that I prepare the surface, it begins to naturally oxidise. I experiment with applying different ground pigments which change colour in response to this process. These paintings visibly age as I work on them. As such, my attempt to transfix time is inherently impossible and this interests me.’
Walsh has been a recipient of multiple awards, prizes, and scholarships, including The Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship, Mosman Art Prize, and The Kilgour Prize, and has been a finalist in The Archibald Prize four times, The BP Portrait Award (London National Portrait Gallery), The Royal Scottish Academy Annual Exhibition (Edinburgh), and The Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition (London).
Lottie Consalvo is a Melbourne-borne artist whose practice is rooted in the exploration of the invisible world. She transcends the boundaries of the visible and tangible, pushing into the mind’s capacity to explore the unbound possibilities of our existence and what lies beyond. Her work navigates the intersections of the physical, internal, and limitless—challenging conventional notions of reality and urging us to embrace what is unseen and unknown.
In 2015, Consalvo completed a residency with Marina Abramovic as part of Kaldor Public Art Projects 30 in Sydney, and an exhibition at Hamburg’s Millerntor Gallery #5. In 2018, she held her first solo museum exhibition at Heide Museum of Modern Art in Victoria. The following year, she showcased her Horizon video works at Casula Powerhouse, and had a major exhibition at Maitland Regional Art Gallery
Gregory Hodge is an Australian artist based in Paris, France. His paintings oscillate between abstraction and figuration, layering personal source material with painterly gestural marks and obscured motifs of architecture, interiors and foliage.
Hodge is interested in devising ways to render material surfaces in paint. His recent bodies of work honour a deliberately handmade quality, where he uses bespoke tools and brushes to create marks that resemble the warp and weft of tapestries. Initially working from illustrations and digitally collaged photographs, Hodge meticulously recreates these layered compositions in paint. Through his deliberate use of shadows and sharp edges, he achieves convincing trompe l’oeil planes that reinforce intellectual and visual collisions, where forms and shapes appear to hover and stack together.
About Sydney Contemporary
Sydney Contemporary, presented by MA Financial Group, returns to Carriageworks from 3-6 September, bringing together 100 galleries from nine countries for the 10th edition of Australasia’s premier art fair. For four unforgettable days of discovery, conversation and spectacle, Carriageworks becomes the centre of the art world in our region. Alive with buzzing crowds, ambitious installations, performances, talks and inspiring encounters with artists and galleries, it’s Sydney’s most exciting cultural event this spring and an event not to miss.
Image: Natasha Walsh, Cornucopia, 2026. Photo courtesy of N.Smith Gallery
