Pat Brassington is one of Australia’s most significant and influential artists working in photo-media. With a career spanning four decades, Brassington has become well known for her incisive ability to infuse the familiar with the fantastic. Her practice is informed by an interest in surrealism, feminism and psychoanalysis.

Seemingly innocent, her enigmatic photomontages open up like a flower, gorgeous and suggestive, then morph into a psychological Rorschach. In her work the endless possibilities of our complex inner states - narratives of sex, memory and identity - run quietly rampant.

Pat has said of her most recent works:
‘I aim to pitch my images just off the verge of normality, into those dense patches where the commonplace goes awry.’

Her images are at once charming and menacing. They rouse a sense of disquiet as they subtly and humorously scratch at the underbelly of the human condition. In her unique way, Brassington is able to present haunting, dream-like images which lead the viewer to the edges of the imagination.

In 2016 Brassington won the Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize and in 2013 she was the recipient of the prestigious Monash Gallery of Art Bowness Photography Prize. A major survey exhibition, Pat Brassington: A Rebours, was held at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne in 2012 and toured Australia and New Zealand until 2016. Brassington’s work has also featured extensively in major exhibitions, including Know My Name, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2020); The Body Electric, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2020); Dressing up: clothing and camera, Monash Gallery of Art, Victoria (2019); Defining Place/Space: Contemporary Photography from Australia, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego (2019); In Her Words, Horsham Regional Art Gallery (2019); The shape of things to come, Buxton Contemporary, Melbourne (2018); Lurid Beauty: Australian Surrealism and its Echoes at the National Gallery of Victoria (2016); NEW13 at the University of Queensland Art Museum (2013); the Adelaide Biennial: Parallel Collisions (2012); Feminism Never Happened at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2010); the Biennale of Sydney (2004); World Without End - Photography and the 20th Century at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (2000) and Fotokunst Aus Australien, Berlin (2000), curated by Bernice Murphy.

Selected solo exhibitions include: Nonetheless, Latrobe Regional Gallery (2019) & ARC ONE Gallery (2018); The Body Electric, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2017); Pat Brassington at Ten Cubed, Melbourne (2014); In Search of the Marvellous at CAST Gallery, Hobart (2013); a survey exhibition at the Lonnstrom Art Museum, Finland (2008); Pat Brassington at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2007); a major solo retrospective at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne (2002) and Gentle at Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2001).

Pat Brassington’s work is held in many public collections including the Art Gallery of New South Wales; Queensland Art Gallery; National Gallery of Australia; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; National Gallery of Victoria; Art Gallery of Western Australia; Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart; ArtBank, Sydney; Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne; Cologne Museum of Contemporary Art, Germany; Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne; Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne; Murdoch University, Perth; Devonport Art Gallery, Tasmania; University of the Northern Territory, Darwin and La Trobe University Art Collection, Melbourne.

2021
Night Swimming, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne

2020
Picturing, Bett Gallery, Hobart

2019
Nonetheless, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria

2018
Nonetheless, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
Pat Brassington, Ten Cubed Collection, Melbourne

2017
The Body Electric, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

2016
À Rebours, UQ Art Museum, Brisbane
Just So, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne

2014
Pat Brassington, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
Pat Brassington, Ten Cubed Collection, Melbourne

2013
In search of the Marvellous, CAST Gallery, Hobart
Quill, Bett Gallery, Hobart

2012
Pat Brassington, Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide
A heartbeat away & The Pressings, Stills Gallery, Sydney
A Rebours, (national touring exhibition) Australian Centre for Contemporary Art

2010
Pat Brassington, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
Pat Brassington, Stills Gallery, Sydney

2009
A Perfect Day, Criterion Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania

2008
Survey Show, The Lonnstrom Art Museum in Rauma, Finland

2007
Heat, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
Pat Brassington, Institute of Modern Art, Queensland
Cambridge Road, Stills Gallery, Sydney

2006
The Sweet Hereafter, Criteron Gallery,Hobart

2005
In the Same Vein, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
You’re So Vein, Stills Gallery, Sydney

2004
Feeding Time, Biennale of Sydney

2003
Pat Brassington, Bett Gallery, Hobart
A Little Waltz, Stills Gallery, Sydney

2002
Pat Brassington: Works in Progress, Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne and Carnegie Gallery, Hobart
Default Blue, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney

2001
Gentle, Stills Gallery, Sydney
Gentle, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
Twins, Courtesy of the artist and Stills Gallery, Sydney

1996
This is not a love song, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne

1993
Incorporeal 2 - ‘Brassington: Book of Jonah, 1932’, The Basement, Hobart (Scenography by David McDowell and Edward Colless)

1991
Maybe you’ve seen it all before, 200 Gertrude Street Gallery, Melbourne Things will tell you their names, Darwin Contemporary Art Space, Northern Territory

1989
Pat Brassington, Chameleon Contemporary Art Space, Hobart and Cockatoo Gallery, Launceston

1988
Memory: Au Rebours, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney

1987
Eight Easy Pieces, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney and Praxis Contemporary Art Space, Perth

1986
Eight Easy Pieces, Chameleon Contemporary Art Space, Hobart

1985
M. F. A. Submission, Tasmanian School of Art Gallery, University of Tasmania, Hobart

1984
Devonport Gallery and Art Centre, Tasmania.

2023
Know One Place, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne

2022
Sydney Contemporary 2022, Carriageworks, Sydney
Image Reverence, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne

2021
STRUCK, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne

2020
Minutiae, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
Know My Name, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
The Body Electric, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

2019
Dressing up: clothing and camera, Monash Gallery of Art,
Victoria Defining Place/Space: Contemporary Photography from Australia, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, USA
In Her Words, Horsham Regional Art Gallery

2018
The shape of things to come, Buxton Contemporary, Melbourne

2017
A Gathering, La Trobe Art Institute, Bendigo VIC
Sydney Contemporary, ARC ONE Gallery, Carriageworks, Sydney
Versus Rodin: Bodies Across Space and Time, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Mad Love, Arndt Art Agency (A3), Berlin, Germany
Today Tomorrow Yesterday, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
The Waiting room, Artbank, NSW Contemporising the Modern: Photography from the 20th and 21st Century, Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre, NSW

2016
Public Image, Private Lives: Family, Friends and Self in Photography, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Tempest, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart
Brainstorm, Tasmanian College of the Arts, Hobart. (Dark Mofo project).
Photography meets Feminism: Australian Women Photographers 1970s-80s, Grafton Regional Gallery, Victoria (Monash Gallery of Art travelling exhibition)
Redlands, Konika Minolta Art Award exhibition, National Art School Gallery, Sydney

2015
Lurid Beauty: Australian Surrealism and its Echoes, National Gallery of Victoria.
The Significant Other, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
Mad Women in the Attic!, Plimsoll Gallery, Tasmanian College of the Arts, University of Tasmania, Hobart.
Hiding in Plain Sight: a selection of Works from the Michael Buxton Collection, Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria

2014
New Passports, New Photography, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
The Brassington Affair, Plimsoll Gallery, Tasmanian College of the Arts, University of Tasmania, Hobart
It is Not It That We See, Sawtooth Gallery, Launceston

2013
Under my Skin: Contemporary Australian Photography from the Corrigan Collection, Rockhampton Art Gallery, Queensland
NEW 2013: Selected Recent Acquisitions, University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane
Bowness Photography Prize, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne (winner)
MCA Collection: New Acquisitions in Context, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
Hollow in the Paper, CAST Gallery, Hobart
Domain: A contested landscape, University of Tasmania, Queen’s Domain Campus, Hobart
A 10 Days on the Island project

2012
Flatlands: Photography and everyday space, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Parallel Collisions, Adelaide Biennale. Theatre of the World, MONA, Hobart, Tasmania

2010
A Generosity of Spirit, QUT Art Museum, Brisbane, Queensland
Feminism Never Happened, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Queensland.

2009
Dark Dreams and Fluorescent Flesh, SASA Gallery, University of South Australia

2008
Dream Home: the domestic in current art practice, Plimsol Gallery, University of Tasmania, Hobart.
Parallel, Long Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre and touring nationally
Bit Perfect, City of Fremantle Art Collection Gallery
Moving Forward: recent acquisitions in the UWA collection, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, University of Western Australia, Perth
50X50 SUMMER SHOW, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne
Bal Taschit: Thou Shalt Not Destroy, Jewish Museum of Australia, Melbourne
Melbourne Art Fair, Victoria

2007
The Betty Quelhurst Gift Exhibition, Queensland University of Technology Art Museum, Brisbane, Queensland
Human, Hous Gallery, Chelsea, New York

2006
The Tallis Foundation, 2006 National Works on Paper, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery
Extra-Aesthetic: 25 views of the Monash University Collection, MUMU, Melbourne
Light Sensitive: Contemporary Australian Photography from the Loti Smorgon Fund, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

2005
Resonator, Long Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart
Print Matters - 30 years of the Shell Fremantle Print Award, Fremantle Arts Centre, Western Australia
Points of View: A Survey of Australian Photography 1985-95, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
MCA Collection: New Acquisitions in Context, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
Uncanny (the unnaturally strange), Artspace, Auckland, New Zealand
In Focus: Contemporary Women Photo-artists, Campbelltown City Art Gallery, N.S.W

2004
On Reason and Emotion, 2004 Biennale of Sydney
Supernatural Artificial, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Japan and toured to Thailand and Vietnam
Pressing Flesh: Skin, Touch, Intimacy, Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand
The Line Between Us: The material relation in contemporary photography, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne
’Imaging the Apple’, RMIT University, Project Space, Melbourne

2003
Anxious Bodies, Art Gallery of N.S.W, Sydney
Jet: Digital Art Prints, Devonport Gallery and Art Centre, Tasmania. Anxious Bodies, Art Gallery of N.S.W., Sydney
Clemenger Contemporary Art Award, Ian Potter Centre, National Gallery of Victoria
Make-believe - Photographic Fictions, Sir Herman Black Gallery, University of Sydney

2002
Jet: Digital Art Prints, Carnegie Gallery, Hobart
Photographic Australia, ARCO 2002, Sala del Canal de Isabel II, Madrid, Spain
Love at First Sight, Contemporary Centre for Photography, Melbourne. Fieldwork: Australian Art 1968-2002, Ian Potter Centre, National Gallery of Victoria
Photogenics: Works from the University Collection, Fine Arts Gallery, University of Tasmania, Hobart
Feminist Narratives, George Paton Gallery, University of Melbourne
Fabrications: Recent Contemporary Art from Tasmania, Chameleon Contemporary Art Space, Hobart and George Paton Gallery, University of Melbourne
Ooze: Six Tasmanian Artists, Roar 2 Gallery, Melbourne, Chameleon Contemporary Art Space, Hobart and the University Gallery, University of 42 Degrees South, touring nationally and to New Zealand

2001
Poets and Painters, Dick Bett Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania
The Lightness of Being: Contemporary Photographic Art from Australia, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne
Pinhole to Pixel, The Sir Herman Black Gallery, University of Sydney
Australian Paper Art Awards 2001, The George Adams Gallery, Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne

2000
Telling Tales: The Child in Contemporary Photography, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne and touring nationally
Gallery, Melbourne and touring nationally
The Lightness of Being: Contemporary Photographic Art from Australia, Neue Berliner Kunstverein/NBK and touring to Dresden, Dusseldorf and Stuttgart
World without end: Photography and the 20th Century, Art Gallery of N.S.W.

1998
Telling Tales, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney and the Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum, Joanneum,Graz Austria
‘Shell’ Fremantle Print Prize, Fremantle Art Centre, Western Australia
Sixth Australian Contemporary Art Fair, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne
Respond Red or Blue, Royal Melbourne Hospital

1997
The Enigmatic Object: Photography and the Uncanny, Art Gallery of N.S.W.
‘Shell’ Fremantle Print Prize, Fremantle Art Centre, Western Australia
Geelong Print Prize, Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria

1996
Photography is Dead! Long Live Photography!, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
Hobart City Art Prize, Carnegie Gallery, Hobart City Council

1995
Half Light, toured to Arts Council of Tasmania venues
Bad Light, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
Bond Store, Hobart, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney and the Contemporary Centre for Photography, Melbourne

1994
Pictograms: Aspects of Contemporary Photographic Practice. An AETA National touring exhibition
The Aberrant Object: Women Dada and Surrealism, Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Melbourne
True Stories, Artspace, Sydney

1992
Blink, Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, Adelaide
Camera Obscura, Darwin Contemporary Art Space, Northern Territory
Psychosoma, Plimsoll Gallery, Centre for the Arts, University of Tasmania.
Medium Density, Australian National Gallery, Canberra

1990
Add Magic, National Billboard Project organised by the Australian Centre For Photography, Sydney
Dis/Appearance: heZ(n), National collaborative Fax Project organised by Charles Anderson in collaboration with 200 Gertrude Street Gallery, Melbourne
42 Degrees South, Chameleon Contemporary Art Space, Hobart, touring nationally and to New Zealand.

1989
Australian Perspecta, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Tableaux Mourant: Photography and Death, Fine Arts Gallery, University of Tasmania, Hobart
Metro Mania (An installation in Collaboration with Geoff Parr), ARX ‘89, PICA, Perth

1988
Landfall, Chameleon Contemporary Art Space, Hobart

1982
North Hobart Photographic Gallery, Hobart
The Michele, Pat, Kaye and Wayne Show, Tasmanian School of Art Gallery, University of Tasmania, Hobart

1980
Works on Paper Acquisitive Prize, Burnie Art Gallery, Tasmania
Art, Gender Identity: Works by Women artists from the Permanent Collection, Devonport Gallery and Arts Centre, Tasmania
Colonial Pastime to Contemporary Profession, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart
Home Body, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Macquarie House Site, Launceston and the Carnegie Gallery, Hobart City Council
Home Made (in collaboration with Geoff Parr), Plimsoll Gallery, Centre for the Arts, University of Tasmania at Hobart, Hobart
Photographing Architecture: Spatiality, Ideology and the Body, University Gallery, University of Tasmania, Launceston.

2018
Australia Council Award for Visual Arts

2017
Don Macfarlane Prize

2016
Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize

2013
William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize

2003
Clemenger Contemporary Art Award (Finalist)

2001
Australian Paper Art Awards

1997
Shell Print Award, Fremantle Arts Centre, Western Australia Geelong Art Gallery,
Acquisitive Works on Paper Award

1994
Visual Arts/Craft Board Professional Development Grant

1990
Maude Vizard-Wholohan Art Prize Purchase Award, Art Gallery of South Australia

1989
Visual Arts/Craft Board Project Grant

Artbank
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria
Burnie Regional Gallery, Tasmania
Devonport Gallery and Arts Centre, Tasmania
Fremantle Arts Centre, Western Australia
Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne
Horsham Regional Art Gallery, Victoria
Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, University of Western Australia
Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Michael Buxton Collection, Melbourne
McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park, Victoria
Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne Monash University Art Museum (MUMA), Melbourne
Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney
MONA, Museum of Old & New Art, Hobart
Murdoch University, Western Australia
Murray Art Museum, Albury
La Trobe University Art Museum, Victoria
QAGOMA, Brisbane
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart
Ten Cubed Collection, Melbourne
University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane
University of Tasmania Fine Art Collection, Hobart
University of Technology, Sydney
Private collections both in Australia and abroad

Eric Hiller, ‘The Michele, Pat, Kaye and Wayne Show’; The Advocate, August, 1982.
Ewins Rod, ‘Uneasy Voyages of the Mind’, The Mercury, Hobart, July 5, 1986.
Mary Dineen, ‘Photogenics’, The Mercury, March 21, 1987.
C. Moore, ‘Close Encounters of a Cultural Kind’, Sydney Morning Herald, May, 1987.
Robert Nelson, ‘Bad Light’, The Age, July, 1996.
Robert Rooney, ‘This is not a love song’, The Australian, Nov 15, 1996.
Anne Marsh, ‘This is not a love song’, Herald Sun, Nov 6, 1996.
Freda Freiberg, ‘This is not a love song’, The Age, Nov 1996.
Ted Snell, ‘Shell Fremantle Print Award’, The Australian, Sept 5, 1997.
Philippa Hawker, ‘Baby look at you now’, The Age, 20 Nov. 2001
Philippa Hawker, ‘Images of an ambiguous world’. The Age, Sept 4, 2002.
Jane Rankin-Read, ‘Visual humour at its best’, Sunday Tasmanian, Oct 20, 2002.
Anne Marsh, ‘This is not a photograph’, monograph - Melbourne Book Launch at Arc One Gallery Oct. 2006.

Jonathan Holmes, ‘Pieces of Eight’, Photofile, Spring, 1986.
Denise Robinson, ‘Impure Solutions’, Art and Text, No. 26, 1987.
Terry Smith, ‘The Imagery of Sexual Identity in Recent Australian Art’, Artlink, Vol. 8 No. 4, 1988.
Anthony Bond, ‘Australia Perspecta 1989’, Art Monthly, No. 22, July, 1989.
Marco Marcon, ‘Australian Perspecta 1989’, Art Monthly, No. 22, July, 1989.
‘Pedestrian Canvas’ (National Billboard Project), Follow Me, March, 1990.
Sean Kelly, ‘42 Degrees South’, Art and Text, No. 39, May, 1991.
Fiona Macdonald, ‘Disappearance: he(Z)n-The Horse, the heart and the artist: Gulf’, Photofile, No. 32, April, 1991.
Charles Anderson, ‘A Passing Glance’, Agenda, July, 1991.
Jim Logan and Greg Ralph, ‘Pat Brassington or, a Photographical Hortus Siccus’, 3pp, Melb, 1991.
Ian McLean, ‘Subject/Object’, Artlink, Vol. II, No. 4, 1991/92.
P. Timms, ‘Painting by Numbers: Melbourne Report’, Art and Australia, Winter, 1992.
Catherine Lumby, ‘Conceptual Meat’, Broadsheet, Sept., 1992.
Richard Grayson, ‘Blink’, Photofile, August, 1992.
Clifford Davey, ‘Psychosoma’, Art and Text, Vol. 44 Jan, 1993.
Peter Hill, ‘The Incorporeals’, Artlink, Vol. 13 No. 2, 1993.
E. Colless, ‘At the Edge of the World’, Art and Australia, Winter, 1993. (Vol. 30. No.4).
B. Creed, ‘The Aberrant Object, Women, Dada and Surrealism’, Art Monthly, May, 1994.
Clifford Davey, Cast Magazine, Issue 7, Winter, 1995.
Ian McLean, ‘Home: body’, Art and Australia, Vol. 33. No. 2, Summer, 1995.
Mary Knights, ‘Home: body’, CAST Magazine, Issue No. 8, Summer, 1996.
Geoff Batchen, ‘Touche:Photography, Touch, Vision’,Photofile, No. 47, March, 1996.
‘Artist’s Pages’, Photofile,No.49, November, 1996.