Sarah Hickey

SPIRIT DWELLINGS
13–30 August 2026.

Created following an artist residency at Greywood Arts in County Cork, Ireland, Spirit Dwellings explores ancestry, folklore and our connection to place. Walking the landscapes where generations of her family once lived, Hickey found herself wondering whether memory is held not only in stories, but in the land itself. The paintings become a way of reaching through the landscape—towards family, belonging and the quiet presence of those who came before.

Blue-faced goddesses, beloved companions, birds and floral emblems inhabit worlds where the boundaries between people, animals and the natural environment remain fluid. Drawing on personal mythology, folk traditions and feminine archetypes, Hickey’s paintings imagine a more connected way of seeing—one in which landscape, memory and the more-than-human world exist in conversation.

The title Spirit Dwellings refers both to places that hold presence and to the paintings themselves. Each work becomes a dwelling place for memory, imagination and the enduring relationships that shape us. Sarah Hickey is a Brisbane-based painter represented by Grainger Gallery. Her work has been exhibited throughout Australia and recognised through selection in major national art prizes including the Sunshine Coast
National Art Prize, Percival Portrait Prize, Kennedy Art Prize, The Lester Prize, Doug Moran Portrait Prize, Clayton Utz Art Award, Mandorla Art Award, Marie Ellis OAM Drawing Prize and SBS Portrait Prize.Sarah Hickey’s series of idols and still life vignettes are expressions of an internal world of dreaming and reflection. The complex layering of imagery and patterns depict beauty, spiritual iconography and the divine feminine/masculine.

A Griffith University Queensland College of Art graduate, Sarah holds bachelor degrees in fine arts and education. She has had ten solo exhibitions and participated in over thirty group shows. Her work has been a recent semi-finalist in The Doug Moran Portrait Prize and The Lester Art Prize. She has been a finalist in The Percival Portrait Prize, The Brisbane Portrait Prize, The Kennedy Art Prize, Redland Art Awards, Xstrata Percival Portrait Award, Clayton Utz Art Award, Marie Ellis OAM Drawing Prize, The Mandorla Art Award, Kenilworth Painting Prize, Lethbridge 10000 Art Award and SBS Portrait Prize.