This photo of me with my mother Irene was taken on my first day of school in 1979 by her brother Lionel.
It appears in my current exhibition ‘Between Stations: Joe Frost’, one of several elements on a poster that documents the placement of the painted banner entitled ‘Wasteland’ on the Rhodes Peninsula. I wanted to set the tenderness of our photo alongside the plain ugliness of CSR’s aerial view of its plastics plant. Mum worked there briefly in the 60s and my memories of the Rhodes Peninsula in its late and post-industrial phases feature throughout the exhibition.
Today I took Mum for a look. She was nicely surprised by the poster.
‘Between Stations: Joe Frost’ at Macquarie University Art Gallery.
Opening: Wednesday 29 April 6.30 pm
Artist Talks: Wednesday 20 May and Saturday 6 June at 1pm.
Thanks to Vasili Vasileiadis for assistance with poster production
Artwork photos Jenni Carter
Installation photo Effy Alexakis
#australianart #urbanpainting
#contemporaryaustralianart #artofsydney #artinpublic #artinpublicplaces #abstractart #macquarieuniversity #macquarieuniversityartgallery
John Peart, the highly anticipated, hardcover monograph bringing together essay contributions by Sioux GARSIDE, Chris SAINES CNZM, Anne RYAN, Quentin SPRAGUE, Joe FROST and John Peart, is now AVAILABLE to purchase online and in the gallery.
Our next exhibition Unfolding Time: Selected from the Estate of John Peart coincides with the launch of the book in Sydney. The book will be officially launched by Sioux GARSIDE and Anne RYAN at King Street Gallery on William.
For a list of available work by John Peart, or more information about the new book, please email us via [email protected]@spitting.img
#JohnPeart #TheArtofJohnPeart #JohnPeartEstate #johnpeartartist #newbook #booklaunch #spittingimage #kingstreetgalleryonwilliam
‘Banner with found forms’ 2023, acrylic on canvas banner, 56 x 138 cm. Placed on rail embankment fence, West Parade, Denistone in January 2026
Opening Wednesday night:
‘Between Stations: Joe Frost’ at Macquarie University Art Gallery.
Opening: Wednesday 29 April 6.30 pm
Artist Talks: Wednesday 20 May and Saturday 6 June at 1pm.
Installation photos: Effy Alexakis
Artwork photo: Jenni Carter
Poster production and catalogue design: Vasili Vasileiadis
Also shown in this post: ‘East Parade’, 1999, pencil on paper, 25 x 35 cm
#australianart #urbanpainting
#contemporaryaustralianart #artofsydney #artinpublic #artinpublicplaces #abstractart #macquarieuniversity #macquarieuniversityartgallery
The question of how to document an intervention in public space is new for me. In my upcoming exhibition ‘Between Stations’ I will be showing a number of printed posters marking the temporary placement of my paintings in chosen places. Consisting of a photograph of the paintings in situ and a map that marks the location, I have chosen old maps that cast my actions in light of a long span of time. The idea of a painting belonging to a place and that relationship being commemorated by a document, with the exhibition of the paintings being a subsequent event, is new for me.
In the poster for ‘Four placards for Denistone Station bridge’ I took the liberty of appropriating an auction poster from the State Library of New South Wales’s extensive collection of suburban subdivision plans. Having searched through hundreds of these, I was thrilled to find that the cluster of Denistone streets that most often feature in my paintings of the area were, in 1924, given a singularly rich treatment by a graphic artist who signed their name simply as Moginie. Moginie did not convey the steepness of the hill, which would have required foreshortening the saleable plots of land to mere strips, but the distant vista is thoroughly recognisable.
‘Between Stations: Joe Frost’ at Macquarie University Art Gallery.
Opening: Wednesday 29 April 6.30 pm
Artist Talks: Wednesday 20 May and Saturday 6 June at 1pm.
Thanks to Vasili Vasileiadis for assistance with poster production
Artwork photos Jenni Carter
Installation photo Effy Alexakis
#australianart #urbanpainting
#contemporaryaustralianart #artofsydney #artinpublic #artinpublicplaces #abstractart #macquarieuniversity #macquarieuniversityartgallery
Since 2023 I have been painting on banners and placards, clipping them to fences in places that are important to me and looking at them as part of the environment. ‘Four placards for Denistone Station bridge’ were painted last year and photographed in situ in January. The station has been a subject in my work for 30 years and these four placards were painted with its plain brick architecture and quiet spaces in mind.
These works will be shown as part of a larger, 30 year body of work related to these localities in my upcoming exhibition ‘Between Stations’ at Macquarie University Art Gallery.
Opening: Wednesday 29 April 6.30 pm. To be opened by Scott Elliot, Assistant Curator of Australian Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales
Artist Talks: Wednesday 20 May and Saturday 6 June at 1pm.
Artwork photos Jenni Carter
Installation photos Effy Alexakis
Any questions about the event, please email [email protected]
#australianart #urbanpainting #contemporaryaustralianart #artofsydney #artinpublic #artinpublicplaces #abstractart #macquarieuniversity #macquarieuniversityartgallery
Just released, Artist Profile Issue 74 features an article on my work: ‘Sensations of Space’ by Rhonda Davis.
The article sets the context for an upcoming exhibition at Macquarie University Art Gallery that will survey my work with the swathe of residential and once-industrial Sydney that lies (approximately) between the suburbs of Denistone, Rhodes and Silverwater.
This urban landscape, not far from Macquarie Uni’s Wallumadegal campus, is the environment in which I began to depict the living world. Through a period of rapid change for the city it has remained a touchstone for me and my painting. ‘Joe Frost: Between Stations’ will include works completed as long ago as 1995 and as recently as this month.
In the meantime, I am appreciative that my work has been given such generous consideration in Artist Profile.
Thanks to @rhondadavis1961 , @effyalexakis for the portrait photos and @tangelo9 for artwork photography. Thanks also to @artistprofile
#contemporarypainting #contemporarydrawing #australianartist #macquarieuniversity #macquarieuniversityartgallery #suburbanpainting #joefrost #liverpoolstreetgallery #artofsydney
Last week I led a group of students on a 4 day drawing workshop at the Sydney Opera House as part of the National Art School’s Drawing Week 2026. Working with lecturers @davehortonsculpture and @evansalmon86 , with a visit from @nthurgate , the group drew continuously, energetically and created some very sensitive drawings.
Their work can be seen today in a free, pop up exhibition in the Opera House’s Centre for Creativity, which was our studio for the week.
A heartfelt Thankyou to @alanaambados for making it possible, to Saige and Grace and all at the SOH. And well done to all the students. You made some great drawings in response to a complex subject. What a fantastic week.
#sydneyoperahouse🇦🇺 #centreforcreativity #drawing #nationalartschoolsydney #drawingweek
🖼️Now live: Digital Exhibition by Joe Frost
Explore a powerful new digital exhibition by Sydney-based artist @joefrostartist , whose work reflects on the changing environments of Sydney and its suburbs through memory, movement, and observation. In this exhibition, he draws on his experiences passing through Rhodes since the 1980s, capturing a landscape in transition.
Created from memory and designed specifically for The Digital Gallery at The Learning Space, the video sequence moves from darkness to light, evoking the atmosphere of a place shaped by time, industry, and change.
Discover this evocative digital exhibition and experience Rhodes through a different perspective.
📍The Digital Gallery at The Learning Space, Rhodes
⌚️ 9 December, 2025 - 9 January, 2026
👉️ Free
My drawing-based screen work “Rhodes Peninsula, late twentieth century” (2025) is showing from next week at The Digital Gallery, Rhodes as the latest of the City of Canada Bay’s artists’ projects. I’m grateful for the opportunity this program has given me to add to my pictorial reflection on this part of Sydney (Wanne) and to display work on the ground where those perceptions were initiated.
I was a frequent train passenger along the Rhodes Peninsula in the late 80s and early 90s, when the area was in its final phase of industrial activity. The flickering of near and far forms in that stark place remains a powerful impression and my discovery of black and white photographs of the area from the 1950s - when the plastics plant was newly built - inspired me to revisit my memories in ink on paper. The work could not have been realised as a video without the creative and technical expertise of @alyssarothwell_artist ❤️
Thanks also to @denis_beaubois for administering the program for the City of Canada Bay.
The video proceeds slowly so I have posted stills here, alongside photographs by Milton Kent and Lynch (collection of @statelibrarynsw ). The final photo is my own, showing the last remaining brick bungalow on Walker Street. It sold this year for 8.1 million dollars.
If you are in Rhodes, the work can be seen at @theconnectionrhodes through December.
#inkdrawing #rhodes #homebushbay #cityofcanadabay #wanne #pollutedcity #artofsydney #contemporaryart #australiandrawing #miltonkent #sydneyrealestate
‘Lee’s Metropolis,’ my new piece of writing on drawer/printmaker/painter Rosemary Lee has been released in Issue 73 of #artistprofilemagazine.
I interviewed Rosemary in September at Parramatta Artist Studios, Rydalmere, just as she was commencing a two year residency there. The article looks at her early life, traces the steady rise of her work since completing studies at the #nationalartschoolsydney and hears her thoughts on subjects including drawing, the city and nature, and the hard-edged worlds of ukiyo-e prints and anime.
The portrait photo by #annakucera catches Rosemary’s personality well.
#parramattaartistsstudiosrydalmere #drawing #urbandrawing #australianartist #flindersstreetgallery #westernsydneyarts #dobelldrawingprize
An early memory of mine is of an afternoon at home with my three older brothers. I would have been 8 or 9. My parents had gone out and we’d put one of Andrew’s Led Zeppelin records on, with nobody to tell us to turn it down. A storm was coming and as the guitars did their expressive work I looked at the strange colours in the sky and thought: yes.
Earlier this year I did this small pencil drawing of that moment.
#pencildrawing #nostalgia #drawnfrommemory #ledzeppelin #storms #guitar #backyard #brothers
