Sharing Practice – The APA Portrait Project

Sharing Practice presents a series of photographic portraits by Penelope Hunt created in close collaboration with artists from Arts Project Australia. The exhibition explores portraiture as a site of exchange, where relationships, time, and shared practice shape how artists see and represent one another.

Hunt’s long association with Arts Project Australia has fostered deep professional and personal connections. These relationships underpin the portraits, allowing each image to move beyond surface likeness toward a more nuanced reflection of artistic identity and process. By exhibiting the portraits as well as artworks by each artist, the exhibition establishes a dialogue between photographic representation and creative practice.

The project is grounded in reciprocity. Working alongside the artists over many years, Hunt has engaged in an ongoing exchange of ideas, observations, and ways of seeing. This collaborative process informs both the portraits and the broader curatorial approach, positioning the exhibition as a shared space of engagement and reflection.

Sharing Practice acknowledges the responsibility and tension inherent in portraiture. Rather than attempting to define or contain its subjects, the exhibition celebrates difference, individuality, and the evolving relationships that emerge through sustained creative engagement. Together, the works honour each artist’s unique perspective while recognising the collective experience of making, seeing, and sharing within the studio environment.

Commissioned by Michael Schwarz and David Clouston, Penelope Hunt was invited to create a series of photographic portraits offering insight into Arts Project artists and their individual practices. The project evolved from Hunt’s long association with Arts Project Australia and her prize-winning portrait of Alan Constable, Finding Focus, in the 2019 BIFB Martin Kantor Portrait Prize.

Photographic portraits by Penelope Hunt. Artworks by Alan Constable, Terry Williams, Lisa Reid, Chris O’Brien, Miles Howard-Wilks, Chris Mason, Monica Lazzari, Jacob Cartelli, Georgia Szmerling, Fiona Longhurst and Sam Ashdown.

Gertrude Glasshouse project space is located above Gertrude Glasshouse on Level 1 and is only accessible via stairs.
Ambulant toilet and baby change facilities available downstairs.
For further information, please call Gertrude Glasshouse on  (03) 9480 0068.