FRANCES
Odd Girl 6, girl + chair, 2021, 2021, cotton thread on British linen, 14” x 29” PRIVATE COLLECTION
Frances BA, MFA, CAS Curatorial Practices
Frances Melhop is a visual artist, curator and gallery director, born in Christchurch, New Zealand, now living in the USA. She has worked globally in the fashion industry as a photographer, constructing imagery; conceptualizing, shooting, and directing stories for publications such as Vogue Italy editions, Vogue Australia, Elle Portugal, and Marie Claire Italy.
In 2009, Luerzer's Archive named Melhop one of The World’s 200 Best Advertising Photographers for the images she created for the campaign of Descamps, France. In 2014 she was awarded the NNDA Comstock Innovator of the Year Award for her arts and community work at St Mary’s Art Center, in Virginia City, Nevada.
Melhop’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions worldwide. She works in photography, stitching, printmaking, installation and oil paint, exploring the tensions between the virtual and physical ways we experience the world.
Melhop has taught Printmaking, Drawing, Photography, Introduction to the Arts, and Visual Foundations at University of Nevada, Reno, and local colleges in Nevada. Currently teaching Art History, Women in the Arts at TMCC.
She completed her MFA at the University of Nevada, Reno, USA. She holds a CAS in Curatorial Practices from Zurich University of the Arts.
In 2020 she opened the contemporary art gallery, Melhop Gallery º7077, and initiated Melhop Projects, at Lake Tahoe, Nevada
Common Threads, 2022 - 2024 installation view
Tender Material exhibition, Dienstegebäude Art Space, Zurich, Switzerland, 2024. Installation view of some of the Common Threads series.
Common Threads
2022 - 2024
Throughout my career, I have made narrative visual stories about women, for women. Inspired by teaching history of artists/activists Gentileschi through to Guerrilla Girls, my instinct is to continue contributing to their reframing of history, amplifying female voices within the art canon.
Recently I researched the advances for women made by the early Feminist artists and how the overturn of Roe versus Wade in 2022, suggests we might be moving backwards, losing some of their hard-won victories. The stitched figures are a salute to the 1960’s - 1990’s Feminist artist icons who used their bodies as material creatively and artistically to break down barriers, taboos, restrictions, oppressive systems, and ideologies.
My most recent series, Common Threads, consists of simple pressure prints of dresses overlaid with embroidered contour drawings of female bodies. As a photographer and multidisciplinary visual artist, I am attracted to the photographic X-Ray quality of the dress imprints and the interplay of multiple perspectives, eye games between the ghostly print and the contour stitching of the liberated figure that is not enclosed by the dress, using nakedness and vulnerability as contemplative tools of resistance.
Overall, my mission is to slow down, preserve and celebrate human touch, materiality, physical realities and honor the memories embedded in each garment. Referencing these artists and their performances reminds me of the importance of questioning imposed standards and the accepted status quo, of following our own creative vision, and standing up to injustices in any little ways, while accepting ourselves as we are.
available work below
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Common Threads 2, Monotype - pressure print on BFK Rives 60” x 36” with contour drawing stitched in cotton thread, 2022-2024
Common Threads 1, rear view, Monotype - pressure print on BFK Rives 60” x 36” with contour drawing stitched in cotton thread, 2022-2024
Common Threads 3, rear view, Monotype - pressure print on BFK Rives 60” x 36” with contour drawing stitched in cotton thread, 2022-2024
Common Threads 2, rear view, Monotype - pressure print on BFK Rives 60” x 36” with contour drawing stitched in cotton thread, 2022-2024
Common Threads 1, Monotype - pressure print on BFK Rives 60” x 36” with contour drawing stitched in cotton thread, 2022-2024
Common Threads 3, Monotype - pressure print on BFK Rives 60” x 36” with contour drawing stitched in cotton thread, 2022-2024
Common Threads installation rear view, 2022-2024
Odd Girls stitch drawings
Installation view of Odd Girls #4, #5, #6, 2021
Odd Girls stitch drawings
As children we would sit in a circle and start the whisper game.
Each child would whisper what they heard to the next child, by the time it reached the end of the circle the whisper had changed beyond recognition. These stitched works are the visual equivalent.
The image of each girl transitions through various processes, to become another translation of a portrait. The pathway goes from living person, to a photographic fragment a record of their existence, to a scanned file, to a computer screen, to a blind contour drawing in vanishing ink, to a stitched drawing. In ways related to surrealist strategies, I reach for the essence of the subject or idea through deep observation, releasing control and allowing the unexpected to unfold.
All the elements of the whisper game exist in these pieces - transformation, surprise, amusement, and wonder. An entirely new image appears in the form of stitched drawings.
Each evolves like a whisper across time….
available work below
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Odd Girl 1, girl + doll, 2021, cotton thread on British linen, 14” x 29”
Odd Girl 2, girl + tree, 2021, cotton thread on British linen, 16” x 25”
Odd Girl 3, girl + lighthouse, 2021, cotton thread on British linen, 16” x 25”
Odd Girl 6, girl + chair, 2021, 2021, cotton thread on British linen, 12.5" x 25” PRIVATE COLLECTION
Odd Girl 5, girl + bow, 2021, cotton thread on British linen, 12.5” x 25” PRIVATE COLLECTION
Odd Girl 7, girl + boy, 2021, cotton thread on British linen, 18” x 32” PRIVATE COLLECTION
Detail of Oddgirl #1
Odd Girl 4, girl + bucket, 2021, cotton thread on British linen, 12.5" x 25”
Side view of Odd Girl #7
Whispers Across Time…
Developed and created concurrently with the Odd Girls series, Whispers Across Time shares the same thought process and artist statement
As children we would sit in a circle and start the whisper game.
Each child would whisper what they heard to the next child, by the time it reached the end of the circle the whisper had changed beyond recognition. These monotypes are the visual equivalent.
The image of each girl transitions through various processes, to become another translation of a portrait. The pathway goes from living person, to a photographic fragment a record of their existence, to a scanned file, to a computer screen, to a blind contour drawing in vanishing ink, to an ink monotype with lino cut. In ways related to surrealist strategies, I reach for the essence of the subject or idea through deep observation, releasing control and allowing the unexpected to unfold.
All the elements of the whisper game exist in these pieces - transformation, surprise, amusement, and wonder. An entirely new image appears in the form of lino cut printwork added to monotype trace drawings.
Each evolves like a whisper across time….
available work below
Sales and Press inquiries
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Whisper #2 Whispers Across Time… series 2021 Monotype, 18” x 18” Ink + oil paint on BFK Rives. PRIVATE COLLECTION
Whisper #3 Whispers Across Time series… 2021 Monotype, 18” x 18” Ink + oil paint on BFK Rives
Whisper # 4 Whispers Across Time… series 2021 Monotype, 18” x 18” Ink on BFK Rives. PRIVATE COLLECTION
Whisper #5 Whispers Across Time series… 2021 Monotype, 18” x 18” Ink on BFK Rives
Whisper #7 Whispers Across Time… series, 2021 Monotype, 18” x 18” Ink on BFK Rives
Whisper #8 Whispers Across Time… series, 2021 Monotype, 18” x 18” Ink on BFK Rives
Whisper #9 Whispers Across Time… series, 2021 Monotype, 18” x 18” Ink on BFK Rives
Whisper #11 Whispers Across Time… series, 2021 Monotype, 18” x 18” Ink on BFK Rives
Whisper #12 Whispers Across Time… series 2021 Monotype, 18” x 18” Ink on BFK Rives
Whisper #13 Whispers Across Time… series, 2021 Monotype, 18” x 18” Ink on BFK Rives
Whisper #16 Whispers Across Time… series, 2021 Monotype, 18” x 18” Ink on BFK Rives
Whisper#6, Whispers Across Time… series, 2021 Monotype, 18” x 18” ink + oil paint on BFK Rives PRIVATE COLLECTION
Whisper #1 Whispers Across Time… series, 2021 Monotype, 18” x 18” Ink on BFK Rives
Whisper #14 Whispers Across Time… series 2021 Monotype, 22” x 22” Ink on BFK Rives
Obscurations series
Obscurations is a series of self-portraits made using the wet plate collodion process on 8” x 10” aluminum plates. The themes explored relate to selfhood, control and communication.
The project relates to the fragmentary nature of a person that photography captures, ephemeral traces of the human self at a moment in time, not any particular identity.
The gesture made with this series is in direct reverse of selfie culture, it is painfully slow, no improvements are made, no in-camera tricks are used, and identity is obscured rather than obvious or idealized, leaving only the idea of a female human standing in place.
available work below
This series is available in a Limited Edition as dye sublimation prints on Aluminum. Edition of 5
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Tintype self #16 Obscurations 8” x 10” tintype self-portraits 2017-2020.
Tintype self #8 Obscurations 8” x 10” tintype self-portraits 2017-2020.
Tintype self #26 Obscurations 8” x 10” tintype self-portraits 2017-2020.
Tintype self #27 Obscurations 8” x 10” tintype self-portraits 2017-2020.
Tintype self #10 Obscurations 8” x 10” tintype self-portraits 2017-2020.
Tintype self #28 Obscurations 8” x 10” tintype self-portraits 2017-2020.
Tintype self #30 Obscurations 8” x 10” tintype self-portraits 2017-2020.
Tintype self #12 Obscurations 8” x 10” tintype self-portraits 2017-2020.
Tintype self #31 Obscurations 8” x 10” tintype self-portraits 2017-2020.
Tintype self #34 Obscurations 8” x 10” tintype self-portraits 2017-2020.
Tintype self #1 Obscurations 8” x 10” tintype self-portraits 2017-2020.
Tintype self #20 Obscurations 8” x 10” tintype self-portraits 2017-2020.
Tintype self #11 Obscurations 8” x 10” tintype self-portraits 2017-2020.
Tintype self #9 Obscurations 8” x 10” tintype self-portraits 2017-2020.
Tintype self #22 Obscurations 8” x 10” tintype self-portraits 2017-2020.
Tintype self #25 Obscurations 8” x 10” tintype self-portraits 2017-2020.
Tintype self #29 Obscurations 8” x 10” tintype self-portraits 2017-2020.
Sum of the Parts
Sum of the Parts consists of an installation of 25 small oil paintings on torn canvas, dissections of faces from appropriated selfie images of girls, found on the internet. The face parts are arranged in a grid gesturing at the Instagram format, where these images were found.
Melhop’s recent research relates to photography and temporality, the passage of time, its recording, the freezing of memories and the production of a visual artifacts or traces. She is observing the selfie culture that is flourishing all over the internet, especially those made by girls and women.
For her trace is a marking of time, a recording of existence, of being human. Memories mark time and yet are fluid, inaccurate, fallible and fickle, until they gradually (or suddenly) vanish. She has been considering the connection between memory, trace and the extremely public selfie phenomenon.
available work below
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Sum of the Parts - full set installation 2018. 40" x 40" unframed
Sum of the Parts - side view
Sum of the Parts - detail
Sum of the Parts - detail
Sum of the Parts - detail
Sum of the Parts - detail
Mourning Piece
Mourning piece is a collection of 51 cyanotype images, that have been embellished with a variety of embroidered interventions, each cotton square stitched with tiny crosses in each corner to a larger piece of silk organza. Each square of silk organza has been sewn together in the form of a quilt.
This project began with my horrified contemplation of the mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand on the 15th of March, 2019, and the realization that my home, origin and birthplace has now been touched by terror.
My thoughts while working on Mourning Piece transitioned from memory and loss into a place of consciousness observing the transience of existence, our physical body and all of its senses, the traces we leave behind and our gradual vanishing.
available work below
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Mourning Piece installation 2020, tea stained cyanotypes on cotton with embroidery, stitched on silk organza. 100" x 50"
Mourning piece #51 - Silk organza, tea stained cyanotype on cotton + stitching 2020
Detail, Mourning piece - Silk organza, tea stained cyanotypes on cotton + stitching 2020
Detail, Mourning piece - Silk organza, tea stained cyanotypes on cotton + stitching 2020
Detail, Mourning piece - Silk organza, tea stained cyanotypes on cotton + stitching 2020
Detail, Mourning piece - Silk organza, tea stained cyanotypes on cotton + stitching 2020
Detail, Mourning piece - Silk organza, tea stained cyanotypes on cotton + stitching 2020
Detail, Mourning piece - Silk organza, tea stained cyanotypes on cotton + stitching 2020
Detail, Mourning piece - Silk organza, tea stained cyanotypes on cotton + stitching 2020
Detail, Mourning piece - Silk organza, tea stained cyanotypes on cotton + stitching 2020
Detail, Mourning piece - Silk organza, tea stained cyanotypes on cotton + stitching 2020
Detail, Mourning piece - Silk organza, tea stained cyanotypes on cotton + stitching 2020
Vanish
“Vanish” explores the connection between photography and memory, the image as a stand in for memory, comforting simulacra suggesting presence in times of absence. Could the photograph replace our own visual records, providing a focus point for a fragmented record in our brain. Vanish delves into the idea that memories are layered, there are gaps and differing transparency or opacity of depth to each memory before it fades and is entirely forgotten.
The installation consists of life-size positive and negative photographic prints from appropriated, tintype images of 13 Victorian girls, on semi opaque silk organza. The tangible evidence of these girls’ existence is found in pocket size tintypes, each in a varying state of worn disintegration. The tintype, invented in the mid 1800’s signifies an era when portraiture became more accessible, in the form of a cheap tin photograph.
These images and Melhop’s research relate to how we understand temporality, impermanence, and the act of portraiture.
available work below
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installation view of "Vanish"
installation view of "Vanish"
detail from the installation view of "Vanish"
Exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions
2024 tender material, curated by Maria Sorensen, Dienstgebäude Art Space, Zurich, Switzerland
2021 Losing Touch, Melhop Gallery º7077, Zephyr Cove, Lake Tahoe, Nevada, USA
2020 in the middle of this nowhere, MFA thesis exhibition, Jot Travis Gallery, University of Nevada, Reno, USA
2019 New Crop, 2 person show, Mark Combs and Frances Melhop, Capital City Arts Initiative, Court House Gallery, Carson City, NV, USA
2018 Vanish, MFA Midway Advancement to Candidacy Exhibition, Jot Travis Gallery, University of Nevada, Reno, USA
2017 The Comstock Portrait Project 2013-2017. The series is a collection of large-scale portraits of the Comstock folk, recordings of their recollections, and photographs of homes in these isolated
communities. Archival digital prints on Hahnemühle Fine Art cotton rag, Haldan Gallery, Lake Tahoe Community College, Lake Tahoe, CA, USA
2016 Telling Tales, a selectrospective of past folkloric and fairytale works. Chromogenic prints on Kodak Endura metallic paper Sierra Arts Foundation Gallery, Reno, USA
2013 Down the Rabbit Hole, selected retrospective works inspired primarily by the stories of Charles Lutwidge Dodson, Brothers Grimm, and Hans Christian Andersen. Images chromogenic prints on
Kodak Endura metallic paper. Limited Editions of 7, St Mary’s Art Center, Virginia City, NV, USA
2012 Submerge, Duo Scorpio CD Release, digital photographic images of the Musicians in a room full of water. The DiMenna Centre for Classical Music, New York, NY, USA
2009 Times of Transformation, underwater images photographed on 35mm film, black and white digital inkjet prints on Canson Edition Etching paper. Limited Editions of 25, Arthaus66, New Mexico, USA
2006 Tall Tales, Cannes Film Festival, a selection of fairytale inspired works, chromogenic prints on Fuji Metallic photographic paper. Limited Editions of 25, Arista Gallery, Cannes, France
2005-2007 Case Abandonnati, Castles and houses found abandoned in the Northern Italian Countryside. Photographed on monorail camera, 4x5" colour negative film, chromogenic prints on Fuji
Metallic photographic paper. Limited Editions of 7, Premiata Showroom, Milan, Italy
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024 UnSaid, curated by Maria Sorensen, Dienstgebäude Art Space, Zurich, Switzerland
Origen Compartido, curated by David Miranda, Radio28CS Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico
53rd Annual Art Faculty Exhibition at Truckee Meadows Community College, NV, USA
Disappearing Birds project by Jen De Los Reyes, Co Prosperity Gallery, Chicago, IL, USA.
Affordable Art Fair NYC, Metropolitan Pavilion, New York, NY, USA.
2023 52nd Annual Art Faculty Exhibition at Truckee Meadows Community College, NV, USA
2022 TTL Teeny Tiny Trifecta. Jury Selection Committee: Tori Cherry, Ashon Crawley, Diana Nelson, Neal Rock, Darryl Smith, and Hagan Tampellini. Second Street Gallery. Charlottesville, Virginia
JULIA MARGARET CAMERON AWARDS 2022, Women Seeing Women 2022, Tintype Self #16 from the Obscurations series, Barcelona, Spain
TTL Teeny Tiny Trifecta. Jury Selection Committee: Tori Cherry, Ashon Crawley, Diana Nelson, Neal Rock, Darryl Smith, and Hagan Tampellini. Second street Gallery. Charlottesville, Virginia
EYE want candy, summer group exhibition, Melhop Gallery º7077, Lake Tahoe, Nevada
Wedge Outside the Box, Dolls and Effigies, JTB gallery, University of Nevada, Reno
FACULTY EXHIBITION, Whispers Across Time series, Haldan Gallery, Lake Tahoe Community College, South Lake Tahoe, CA, USA
2021 Cat Art Show LA, A New Beginning, Cat Hat image 2008-2021, curated by Susan Michals at the Golden Pagoda, Los Angeles, California, USA
Shelter, Melhop Gallery º7077, inaugural exhibition of the gallery, Zephyr Cove, Lake Tahoe, NV, USA
2020 Obscurations, Social Distance Gallery, MFA virtual exhibition created by Benjamin Cook, USA
2019 Placed/Displaced Exhibition, Rocky Mountain Printmaking Alliance, Arizona State University, AZ, USA
Air New Zealand - Kiwis In LA, Annual juried group show, Mourning Piece, 18th St Art Center, Santa Monica, CA, USA
Home, Triangle from The Comstock Portrait Project, jurors Mia Dalglish and Lisa Woodward for the SE Center for Photography, Greenville, SC, USA
Between Plate and Paper, 3 images from #selfiegirl, McKinley Art Center, Reno, NV, USA
No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man, Clown Machine from the Welcome Home series 2011-2017. Cincinnati Art Museum, OH, USA
Persistence, images from Vanish, in honor of Women’s History Month, juried by Lori Pratico, founder of Girl Noticed, at The D’Art Center, Norfolk, VA, USA
Translating Silver City: Artwork from the Permanent Collection of the Resident Artist Program in Silver City, Nevada, USA
The Magic Silver Show: The Elena Diane Curris Juried Photography Exhibition, images from Vanish, Juried by Bradly Dever Treadaway, Fulbright Scholar to Italy, Faculty member and Digital Media
Coordinator at The International Center of Photography in New York City. Clara M. Eagle Gallery at Murray State University, KY, USA
Contemporary Voices in Photography, images from Vanish, Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, Juror: Aline Smithson, founder of the online photography journal LENSCRATCH. RICPA
gallery, 118 N. Main St. Providence, RI, USA
Off the Press: Tahoe/Reno Area Printmakers, images from the Keepsake series, intaglio, Haldan Gallery, Lake Tahoe Community College, Lake Tahoe, CA, USA
Existence: SELF-PRESENCE, Whittemore Gallery, excerpt from Vanish exhibition, University of Nevada, Reno, USA
2018 Sum of the Parts, MFA Review Exhibition, MFA Review exhibition, Jot Travis Gallery, University of Nevada, Reno, USA
5th Biennial of Fine Art & Documentary Photography, Comstock Portrait, Barcelona, Spain
Air New Zealand - Kiwis In LA, Annual juried group show, Sheep series, Santa Monica Art Studios, Santa Monica, CA, USA
The Wind Calls, The Brick Gallery, Capital City Arts Initiative, Carson City, NV, USA
City of Trembling Leaves, Jot Travis Gallery, Southdown sheep, University of Nevada, Reno, USA
2017 Annual Student Art Show, University of Nevada, Reno. Masquerade and Portrait of Lorenzo, Juried by Garth Johnson, curator of ceramics at the ASU Art Museum in Tempe, Arizona, USA
Paradoxical Existence, The Comstock Portrait Project 2013-2017 MFA Review exhibition, jot Travis Gallery, University of Nevada, Reno, USA
A Sense of Place 36th Annual National Juried Fine Art Competition Exhibition at the Gertrude Herbert Institute in Augusta, Georgia, curated by Michael Rooks of the High Museum in Atlanta, USA
Meed1 juried exhibition, at Gallery19 Chicago, IL, USA, curated and juried by Jennifer Murray, Executive Director of Filter Photo
Comstock Portrait, 9th juried Pollux Exhibition, curated by Julio Hirsch-Hardy, Managing Director and Senior Curator of the International Biennial of Fine Art and Documentary Photography, at
Valid Foto, Barcelona, Spain
45th International Art Show, Sheep paintings, Brownsville Museum of Fine Art, Brownsville, Texas. Juried by Cesar Martinez of San Antonio, Angel Cabrales of El Paso, and Annie Moye of Atlanta,
Georgia
2016 Infinity Jot Travis Gallery University of Nevada, Reno, USA. Juried by Mark Van Proyen, Art critic and Associate Professor at the San Francisco Art Institute
2015 Out on a Limb Mathewson Knowledge Center, University of Nevada, Reno
2013 Animal Fairy Tales, Fables, Fact or Fiction Las Laguna Gallery, Laguna Beach, USA
Art Nevada St Mary's Art Center, Virginia City, NV, USA
Arte Contemporanea, Abitart Gallery, Rome, Italy
Marionette, Abitart gallery, Rome, Italy
Tales selected works, ArtBlast McKinley Arts Center, Reno, USA
EdibleArt, Artspace Gallery Reno, USA
Pinhole works, Art Caffè Letterario, Rome, Italy
2012 Art on The Hill, Artown, selection from the “Ancient Olives” series, Reno, USA
2011 Bianco Nero, Vista gallery, Rome, Italy
2010 Ancient Olive Trees series, projections on the castle wall, MIRA, show hung in the Vecchio Frantoio, Pallazzo Palmieri, Martignano, Italy
Ancient Olive Tree series, MIRA Martignano International Artists Residency, Accademia di Belle Arte, Lecce, Italy
Pinhole Camera Visionaries, 4x5" Polaroid, Lagniappe Gallery, Dunedin, New Zealand
Ghost Girl, Arthaus66, New Mexico, USA
Waterbabe, digital photography – from underwater series, Globe, Milano, Italy
Miniatures, selected fairytale works, photography with digital paint intervention. Ghost Gallery and Gossamer Collective, Seattle, USA
2009 Silence, miniature sets photographed using a pinhole camera on 4x5" Polaroid, Vista Gallery, Rome, Italy
2008 Pollicina, Canon ProFashional awards, chromogenic photographic images Dusseldorf, Germany
The Fairytale Continues, selected works inspired by Hans Christian Andersen, Arthaus66, New Mexico, USA
2007 In Teatro, selected works photographed on 8 x10" Polaroid, Paul Maurin Gallery, Paris, France
Permanent collections
2020 Don’t Cut Your Hair It’s Beautiful, collaboration on artists book with Kellee Morgado, Redfield Fellow of the Black Rock Press, collection of the Black Rock Press, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA
2020 Collecting Community History Initiative, Autry Museum of the American West, LA, CA, USA
2019 Betwixt and Between, intaglio print, University of Utah School of Art, Salt Lake City, UT
2019 Vanish (2 images) Magic Silver Collection, Murray State University, KY, USA
2018 Rick, from The Comstock Portrait Project 2013-2017, to the collection of the 5th Biennial of Fine Art & Documentary Photography, Barcelona, Spain
2017 Jim McCormick from The Comstock Portrait Project 2013-2017, to the collection of Resident Artist Program in Silver City, Nevada, USA
1994 - 1999 Collaborated with Australian artist Susan Norrie on 3 exhibitions. Our photographic works appear in permanent collections such as Nancy Hoffman Gallery, NYC, USA and NSW Art Gallery,
Sydney, Australia