Gene A'Hern

MELBOURNE TODAY - ARTIST TALK GENE A'HERN Melbourne Art Fair Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre Visit Booth B3 to hear Sulman award-winning artist, Gene A’Hern talk about his newest body of work to discover more about his practice and process. To request a catalogue of works please email: [email protected] @gene_ahern Photo: @nathanhyrattphoto

🪾🍁🌞 currently on view at @melbourneartfair

MELBOURNE GENE A'HERN Melbourne Art Fair 19-22nd Feb, 2026 Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre Visit us in our booth B3 For enquires please request a catalogue: [email protected]

Gene A’Hern’s works are vivid, textural, and resonate with dynamic movement. His practice resonates strongly with the role of spirituality in art, and the power of quiet, process-driven work.  At Melbourne Art Fair, @cassandrabird.gallery (Gadigal Country/Sydney, Paris) presents a solo exhibition of work by A’Hern. This new body of work, created specifically for the Fair, will mark a significant evolution in A’hern’s practice, expanding his distinctive visual language through layered mark-making, symbolic abstraction, and a meditative use of colour and space. Find them at Melbourne Art Fair, Booth B3. @gene_ahern - Imagery courtesy the artist and Cassandra Bird Gallery

Had the privilege of watching my boy @gene_ahern do his thing in the studio last week 😮‍💨 If you didn’t know, he also recently won a huge prize… the Sulman Prize at @artgalleryofnsw , which is a real big deal! Love seeing my people win 🫶🏼

Lilac sky band Oil on canvas @cassandrabird.gallery Photo: Laura Moore

Love to everybody that came last night to celebrate the opening of “Dawn chorus” on view now @cassandrabird.gallery Photo: Laura Moore

TOMORROW NIGHT 'Dawn Chorus' 6-8pm, 26th June @cassandrabird.gallery We are excited to host our opening reception of Gene A'hern's 'Dawn Chorus' tomorrow night. This series of new paintings continues A'Hern's investigation into the poetics of place, memory, and cyclical time, using painting as a means of documenting lived experience. This series is underpinned by the idea of dawn as both a literal and symbolic event, a daily phenomenon that signals renewal, continuity, and the quiet possibility of transformation. Drawing inspiration from the smallest of birds whose early calls signal the beginning of the day, A'hern positions the 'Dawn Chorus' as a metaphor for the rhythm of the seasons and the shifting interplay of colour and light that animates our visual and elemental world. Gene A'hern Dawn Chorus 5, 2025 Oil on board 152 x 123cm

CASSANDRA BIRD is delighted to announce Dawn Chorus, a solo exhibition of new paintings by artist Gene A’Hern. Opening Reception Thursday, 26 June 6-8pm Dawn Chorus marks a pivotal moment in Gene A’Hern’s artistic practice, coinciding with his recent solo exhibition in Los Angeles and his receipt of the prestigious Sir John Sulman Art Prize from the Art Gallery of New South Wales. This series of new paintings continues A’Hern’s investigation into the poetics of place, memory, and cyclical time, using painting as a means of documenting lived experience. This series is underpinned by the idea of dawn as both a literal and symbolic event, a daily phenomenon that signals renewal, continuity, and the quiet possibility of transformation. Drawing inspiration from the smallest of birds whose early calls signal the beginning of day, A’Hern positions the ‘Dawn Chorus’ as a metaphor for the rhythm of the seasons and the shifting interplay of colour and light that animates our visual world. Executed with a dynamic material vocabulary, ranging from oil stick and pastel to gestural layers of paint on linen, paper or board, A’Hern’s work reveal a commitment to texture, surface, and expressive mark-making. His paintings oscillate between abstraction and narrative, collapsing distinctions between personal history, familial memory, and broader painterly traditions. A’Hern constructs images that are simultaneously energetic and intimate. Dawn Chorus not only reflects the artist’s continued exploration of painting as a time-based medium but also evokes a deeper reflection on renewal and how the act of making can mirror the natural cycles that shape both the world around us and the inner landscapes we carry. @gene_ahern

A love letter to colour. Watch Gene A’Hern (@gene_ahern ), winner of the Sir John Sulman Prize 2025 talk about his work ‘Sky painting’. See Gene’s striking painting with all the winners and finalists in the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2025 exhibition, open now. The Archibald Prize is proudly presented by @anz_au and Major partner Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer __ Winner #SulmanPrize 2025, Gene A’Hern ‘Sky painting’, oil and oil stick on board, © the artist

✨️ Congratulations to Gene A’Hern—recipient of this year’s Sulman Prize in Australia. ✨️ A striking recognition for an artist whose work continues to push boundaries. This work is on view at the Art Gallery of NSW from 10 May to 17 August 2025. Gene A'Hern Sky Painting 66, 2025 Oil and oil stick on board 94.49h x 94.49w in 240h x 240w cm Unique Speaking of his win, A’Hern said: “Painted with expansive movements to capture a sense of scale and colour, this painting unfolded as I immersed myself in skywatching, while reflecting on the ceremonial choreography of the surrounding environment. It conveys a sensation of nature’s gestures, composed to resonate from within, translating an omnipresence that comes from dust and returns to dust. “The work draws on charged memories – birds singing in harmony, branches sighing in the wind, the closing curtain of the setting sun, all forming a living landscape that I breathe with and through. For me, the sky and the Blue Mountains intertwine and reveal themselves as a place of origin, deep memory and belonging.” Image Slides 1, 2, 3, and 5 © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Diana Panuccio. @gene_ahern #geneahern #sulmanprize2025 #sulmanprize #australia #artgalleryofnewsouthwales #simchowitzgallery #skypainting

I’m deeply honoured to have received the Sir John Sulman prize 2025. A Big Thank you to @artgalleryofnsw and to guest judge and artist @elizabethpulie for choosing my work. A Congratulations to 💐 @julie.fragar 💐 and 💐 @jude_rae 💐 it was a treat to share the day and the stage with you. To all finalists!🥂❤️