Sydney Contemporary

Desert Varnish – Conversations with Fowlers Gap

3 - 6 September 2026

A week at Fowlers on ancient Barkandji Country offered time to pay attention—to be alone, to look, listen, observe and reflect. Simply being there, alongside other artists, was a privilege. Without the pressure of an immediate outcome, the space between looking and making gradually revealed what I wanted to respond to.

Alongside group excursions across the property, I wandered through the station’s industrial area, visited the tip, collected fragments of wire and discarded objects, and made small pencil and watercolour studies. These quiet walks became a way of reading the landscape. I was drawn to the layers of human presence held within it: the remnants of pastoral history alongside the evidence of its continuing story.

Although Fowlers is no longer a working livestock station, it remains an active place of conservation and ecological research. Inclusion and exclusion fencing, sheds, storage structures and everyday objects speak of observation, experimentation, management and care. They tell a contemporary story while carrying the memory of country and earlier lives and labour, revealing a landscape that continues to evolve.

My new series of paintings, Field of Vision, focuses not on domestic architecture but on evidence of human presence—the deliberate placement of functional objects within an ancient landscape. These structures and materials become quiet markers of intent. The scenes appear still, almost suspended, yet they hold a quiet sense of ongoing activity, suggesting that work, inquiry and change continue beyond what is immediately visible.

Arthouse Gallery

Fowlers Gap Group Exhibition | Sydney Contemporary

Robyn Sweaney

Field of Vision series I-VI 2026