Art Wank
Come along for the ride with curious artists Fiona Verity, Julie Nicholson and host Gary Seller, as they talk about their creative journey. Hear them interviewing artists, curators, gallery owners, teachers and creatives to guide them, and the listeners, within the arts community. Enjoy the banter whilst they navigate through all the Art W**k.
Art Wank
Episode 253 - Brett Mcmahon: A poetic response to landscape
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Brett McMahon is a Newcastle-based painter whose work explores the structures and rhythms of the natural and built environment. Represented by Nanda Hobbs, McMahon has built a significant practice spanning painting, drawing and installation.
His work is known for its distilled, abstract language, bold lines, shifting geometries and a strong sense of spatial tension. Drawing from the coastal bush, industrial architecture and lived experience of place, his paintings sit somewhere between observation and reconstruction, where landscape becomes structure.
Over a career spanning more than three decades, McMahon has held over 30 solo exhibitions and exhibited widely across Australia and internationally. His work is held in public, corporate and private collections across Australia, Europe, Asia and the United States.
In this conversation, we talk about painting as a way of thinking, the role of environment in shaping visual language, and how a practice evolves over time without losing its core concerns. We also get into scale, material and the push and pull between control and intuition in the studio.
Brett is represented by Nanda Hobbs in Sydney
Brett's show at Gosford Art Gallery Understory, opens 16th May 2026