Front view of a mid-century modern house with stone and brick exterior, large front window, and a second-story balcony with white railing. There are landscaped plants and palm trees in the yard, a black fence, and a sidewalk in front.

Lost in Palm Springs

A national touring exhibition, 2023–2024

Lost in Palm Springs is an interdisciplinary exhibition bringing together fifteen artists, photographers and thinkers from Australia and the United States to respond to the magical qualities of the Californian desert city — its singular light, its landscape, and the celebrated mid-century modern architecture that has come to define it.

Curated by Dr Greer Honeywill and presented by HOTA, Home of the Arts in partnership with Museums & Galleries Queensland, the exhibition draws on the remarkably strong connections between Palm Springs and Australia, particularly through the contemporary renaissance of interest in modernist architecture. Place and home, desert atmospheres, real and imagined landscapes, and Bauhaus sensibilities thread through the works.

Australian artists Kate Ballis, Tom Blachford, Rosi Griffin, Robyn Sweaney, Paul Davies, Anna Carey, Vicki Stavrou, Sam Cranstoun and Gosia Wlodarczak exhibit alongside American artists Darren Bradley, Blake Baxter, Lance O'Donnell, Troy Kudlac, Kim Stringfellow and Jim Isermann.

The exhibition debuted at HOTA Gallery, Gold Coast in March 2023 before touring nationally to Manly Art Gallery & Museum, Sydney and the Art Gallery of Ballarat, Victoria in 2024, as part of an eleven-venue national tour supported by the Australian Government's Visions of Australia program.

Sweaney's paintings sit within her ongoing meditation on place, memory and the cultural landscape — preoccupations that find a natural counterpart in the suburban modernist vernacular of Palm Springs.

The exhibition is accompanied by Lost in Palm Springs (Melbourne Books, 2023), a publication by curator Greer Honeywill.

People viewing an architectural drawing of a modern house in an art gallery
Painting of a mid-century modern house with a balcony, palm trees, and a small front yard, displayed on a gallery wall with a description placard beside it.
People viewing a painting of a house with trees and plants, featuring a boat on the roof, in an art gallery.
An art gallery with framed artworks on white walls, a television screen displaying nature imagery, and a black bench on a gray carpeted floor.
Exhibition title 'Lost in Palm Springs' with descriptive text about the exhibit, mention of Palm Springs' modern architecture, artistic inspiration, and cultural significance.
A woman in a black dress holding a striped woven bag, standing in front of a framed artwork of a modern house with plants and a lawn.