Vantage

This November, Peta West and Miranda Hampson return to Michael Reid Southern Highlands with Vantage — the first time these two celebrated artists have exhibited together. The exhibition brings into focus the ways we see, remember, and interpret the land.

Lake Conjola–based printmaker Peta West unveils two of the most commanding works of her career — including the monumental Sweetwater. Across vast linocuts, carved line by line over hundreds of hours, West renders the landscape with masterful precision. “I’m constantly searching for ways to carve the landscape with depth,” she says, “so that when you look at the work, you feel as though you could step right into the reimagined vista before you.”

Her latest works were shaped after travelling through Central Australia, where studies of flora and topography became the foundation for these intricate, reimagined terrains — rolled by hand in Prussian blue ink onto fine Japanese paper. Once a photographer, West brings the same attuned sense of light and structure to her printmaking, carving for months to reveal flora and birdlife in astonishing detail. The result cements her as one of the foremost printmakers working in Australia today.

Miranda Hampson, an Anaiwan artist practising on Dharawal Country, follows her sold-out Lookaftering collection with new paintings that continue her exploration of Country and kin. Working in part with ochre sourced with permission from Elders, she creates pared-back compositions that hover between map and memory. Across their surfaces, fine lines recall the weave of baskets, while cracked and layered forms evoke salt plains and dry riverbeds — landscapes marked by endurance, history, and care.

Together, West and Hampson offer two vantage points on the Australian landscape — one carved, one painted — each a meditation on place, connection, and the patient act of seeing.