A major survey exhibition celebrating the career of award-winning Australian artist Jennifer Mills, Bunjil Place will present In the echo chamber in the Gallery from 9 August 2025.
Covering 30 years of her practice, it brings together over 100 works and offers a comprehensive survey to her approach and themes, ranging from cult television shows, costumes and disguise, childhood and disability.
Mills has captivated audiences with her mastery of watercolour – a medium through which she explores the delicate interplay of presence and absence. Often beginning with found photographic imagery, she employs oil pastel, scissors, or physical erasure to conceal, remove, or interrupt elements within the image.
By disrupting the original narrative, Mills invites new readings, creating visual spaces where memory, ambiguity, and silence take precedence. Her practice offers a reflection on memory, identity, and the fragmented nature of images and meaning.
“I was thrilled when Penny Teale, curator from Bunjil Place first approached me about this survey exhibition, says Jennifer Mills. “It will be my first opportunity to see my work in dialogue with one another in one space. This is a priveledge that I will share with my son, Darcy Luker, who has collaborated on many works with me over the past few years.”
Jennifer Mills was born in 1966 and currently lives and works in Narrm. Mills has exhibited regularly with Darren Knight Gallery since 1997. She is currently a finalist in the Dobell Drawing Prize, was a finalist in the Paul Guest Drawing Prize at Bendigo Art Gallery in 2024 and has been a regular finalist in the Geelong Art Prize, Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award, Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize, Jacaranda Art Prize and Mornington Peninsula National Works on Paper Prize.
In 2018 she won the Splash: McClelland Contemporary Watercolour Award. In 2012 she was included in Contemporary Australia: Women, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane. Her work has also been included in group exhibitions including Contemporary Australian Drawings 1, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, Australia (2010), Magnetic Islands, RMIT Project Space / Spare Room, Melbourne, Australia (2010), Darwin’s bastards, Verge Gallery, University of Sydney, Australia (2009), All in an afternoon, Monash University Faculty Gallery, Melbourne (2007); Polar mark, RMIT Project Space / Spare Room, Melbourne (2007); Strange beauty, Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts, Melbourne (2007); and Getting on Mother’s Nerves, Mother’s Tankstation, Dublin, Ireland (2006).
Jennifer Mills: In the echo chamber
Gallery – Bunjil Place, 2 Patrick Northeast Drive, Narre Warren
Exhibition: 9 August – 16 November 2025
Free entry
For more information, visit: www.bunjilplace.com.au for details.
Image: Jennifer Mills, In the echo chamber (Falling), 2014, watercolour, gouache, ink, pencil and oil pastel on paper, 38.0 x 52.0 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney