There is that famous saying that “men are from Mars and women are from Venus” but for many, Venus is so much more than a flimsy anecdote that continues to compound gender roles and stereotypes. Venus is divine. Venus is unapologetically feminine. Venus is art. Venus is an ever evolving force. Venus is a resilient planet that shines in the night sky. Venus is the timeless tale of the Roman goddess. Venus is a muse for those looking to reclaim their power and strength.
PoetsArtists and 33 Contemporary are proud to present ‘Venus Reclaimed: Strength and Identity’, an incredible group exhibition celebrating the resilience, power, and evolving identity of woman. This figurative art exhibition, opening from 1 – 31 March 2026, will feature over 30 artists from across the globe who’ve all interpreted the feminine identify through a variety of mediums including painting, photography, and sculpture.
In this exclusive interview, I chat to four of the artists who’re participating in this exhibition who all hail from sunny Australia including representational artist Narelle Zeller, narrative painter Matthew Quick, German-Australian figurative artist Kathrin Longhurst and contemporary realist painter Dianne Gall. Continue reading to discover what ‘Venus Reclaimed’ means to each of these artists as they discuss the work they’ve contributed, their personal relationships with femininity and the challenges they faced whilst working on this exciting project.
Interview with Narelle Zeller, Matthew Quick, Kathrin Longhurst and Dianne Gall
Can you tell me about the work you are contributing to the show and share how you’ve chosen to celebrate feminine identity?
Narelle Zeller: The work I am contributing to Venus Reclaimed is titled “Venus in Lace Armour“. It is a small, intimate portrait, cropped closely, portraying Venus as a modern-day young woman with dark purple hair and piercings. She meets the viewer with a strong, direct, unapologetic gaze. She wears a lace top and holds a white freesia.
When approaching this theme, I wanted to portray a real, present-day woman and depict her as both beautiful and strong. With my daughter being a regular model of mine, I felt there was no one more fitting to reimagine as the goddess of beauty and love. I wanted to include both floral and lace elements, as they are a common thread in my work. The white freesia – associated with love, purity, and new beginnings – felt symbolically aligned with Venus, as well as with broader themes of femininity and beauty. An overall palette of purple, white, and green further reinforces ideas of female empowerment.
Matthew Quick: The work I’m contributing to Venus Reclaimed begins from a position of deliberate tension. I’ve taken a sculptural archetype that historically embodies the 19th-century ideal of femininity – passive, idealised, eroticised, and vulnerable – and displaced it both temporally and culturally. My intention wasn’t to reproduce or glorify that tradition, but to confront it by removing the conditions that once made it legible and acceptable.
By placing this form into a contemporary context (specifically an Australian one) the work exposes the male gaze as a historical construction rather than a natural truth. The sculpture becomes a kind of time capsule: it carries the ideology of its origin forward into a world where those values no longer sit comfortably. In that friction, the feminine figure is no longer compliant. She becomes estranged from her original purpose.
The inclusion of the shark fin is critical here. It functions as a counter-symbol; one of agency, threat, and autonomy. It disrupts the long-standing visual narrative of female fragility and instead suggests a contemporary rebalancing of power.
While that rebalancing is far from complete, it reflects a cultural shift: a move away from femininity as something to be consumed, toward femininity as something self-possessed, self-possessed, alert, and capable of resistance.
Kathrin Longhurst: “He Believes in Beauty” is my response to the idea of Venus Reclaimed The title borrows from Björk’s 1993 song Venus as a Boy, with its refrain: “He believes in beauty, He’s Venus as a boy.”
The painting depicts my adolescent son at the threshold of adulthood, searching for his place in a world still fixated on binaries which are male and female, strength and softness, protector and nurturer. I wanted to imagine a space where these boundaries dissolve, where masculinity and femininity coexist without hierarchy or judgement.
Would the world be a better place if gender didn’t matter? If men were free to be gentle, loving and warm and if those so-called “feminine” traits were seen as assets rather than liabilities?
The imagery of shells recurs throughout the work: a clam shell nods to Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus”, while ammunition shells point to the expectations placed on boys to be protectors, to fight, to harden. Which shell he chooses, the one of creation or destruction, remains unresolved.
This painting is both a portrait and a proposition: hope for a world where beauty and vulnerability are not gendered, but simply human.
Dianne Gall: Venus arrives driving her own muscle car, seated in a leather clam shell seat, pearls at her feet and only stopping to take a selfie. A modern embodiment of beauty, radiating feminine power and side of narcissism as she’s mesmerised by her own self-image and the desire to mark the moment, her moment in time to share.
Every element is this work has been carefully considered, the scallop of the car seat mimics the clam shell of Sandro Botticelli’s famous work “The Birth of Venus”, the light flares on the floor of the car echoes of pearls fallen to the ground, the shimmer of the dress is the pearlescent colour on the inside of the shell and the locks of her raven-hair are an adaptation of the Titan-hair of the standing Venus. The rhythm of the painting follows the hair falling upon the shoulder, travelling along the arm to gazing into a mobile phone, a generational social phenomenon.
Venus represents the embodiment of strength and beauty, commanding control over both her moment and her destiny. She actively steers her future, choosing horizons that reflect her own aspirations and independence. In this depiction, Venus is seen enjoying a night out, seated confidently in a powerful Australian Muscle Car. This is not just any vehicle—it is a symbol of her boldness and readiness to face whatever encounters may arise.
Confident in her own skin and identity, Venus radiates feminine power. The use of saturated colours intensifies the viewer’s experience, making the moment vivid and immediate, emphasizing that every minute is rich with reality and experience. Always the observer, the modern Venus documents her journey by holding her mobile phone to her face, sharing her experiences with the world through social media. Importantly, she does this not in search of validation but to assert her dominance and presence.
What does feminine identity mean to you?
Narelle Zeller: That’s a tough question! Feminine identity is hard to define, and I don’t think it needs to be. When I think about the word “feminine,” I personally associate it with qualities like sensitivity, empathy, grace, and a sense of nurturing.
I think these qualities naturally appear in my work regardless of the sitter’s gender, and reflect my own feminine voice and way of making images.
Matthew Quick: To me, feminine identity is not a fixed aesthetic or singular behavioural mode, it’s a shifting, contested space shaped by history, power, and context. What interests me most is how femininity has been defined from the outside: by institutions, by art history, by colonial and patriarchal systems that encoded vulnerability and beauty as expectations, rather than choices.
As I see it, the feminine identity exists in negotiation; between inheritance and autonomy, between imposed symbolism and lived reality.
In my work, I’m less interested in prescribing what femininity is than in exposing how narrowly it has been framed, and how strange those frames look when viewed from the present. When those inherited ideals are stripped of their original context and authority, what remains is not fragility, but complexity.
Kathrin Longhurst: For me, identity is not fixed or binary, but fluid and expansive. I am drawn to people for who they are, regardless of sex or gender. Yet I still view the world through a feminist lens shaped by my practice and lived experience. Within this framework, female and feminine identities are often inseparable from histories of struggle, control, and oppression.
While there have been great advances in gender equality, recent years have also revealed a stark backlash, many that seek to erode women’s autonomy and agency. This tension continues to inform my work, reminding me that progress is neither linear or certain.
Dianne Gall: My paintings are deliberately enigmatic allowing the viewer to imagine what’s going on. There is no one way to read this painting, but there are clues.
Who are some of the women who inspire you and why?
Narelle Zeller: There are many women who inspire me, but two of my greatest inspirations are my mother and my daughter.
My mother inspires me because of what she has overcome in her life. Her strength, resilience, and unwavering support have shaped who I am. She has always encouraged and nurtured my creativity, and she continues to be my rock.
My daughter inspires me every day through her outlook on life, her sense of adventure, and her creativity. I’m constantly moved by her confidence in knowing who she is and what she wants, as well as her generosity and care for others.
Matthew Quick: Many of the women who inspire me are those who have actively resisted or re-authored the narratives imposed upon them – particularly within art history and its structures of power.
Historically, someone like Artemisia Gentileschi stands out. Working within a deeply patriarchal system, she appropriated the visual language of her male contemporaries but infused it with a radically different psychological authority. Her female figures are not passive subjects of spectacle; they are agents, often confronting violence, power, and retribution head-on. That she resisted the patriarchy and legally confronted her rapist is all the more remarkable in the context of the time and the completely male dominated area in which she operated.
Closer to home, Tracey Moffatt has been inspirational in how she interrogates representation, colonial legacy, and constructed identity within an Australian context. Her work consistently exposes how images operate as instruments of power, particularly in a post-colonial landscape where European ideals were transplanted wholesale into an environment they were never designed for. That cultural dislocation is something I’m deeply interested in.
More broadly, I’m inspired less by idealised figures and more by women who operate with intellectual clarity and resistance within systems not designed for them. Artists, writers, and thinkers who challenge the structures they inhabit, often subtly, often persistently, have had the greatest impact on me.
That act of reclamation, particularly within systems that once excluded or objectified them, mirrors the conceptual foundation of this work and the broader concerns of Venus Reclaimed.
Kathrin Longhurst: My greatest inspirations are my girlfriends. I witness their struggles and their resilience, the way they confront and overcome the most profound challenges in their lives. I see their generosity, their loyalty, and the unwavering way they show up for one another and for me, especially in moments of vulnerability or doubt.
Their influence on my work is so strong that I have dedicated an entire upcoming exhibition to them at Flinders Lane Gallery in Melbourne in June 2026. The sense of camaraderie I share with my friends feels akin to that of soldiers on a battlefield: carrying the wounded, tending to one another after the fight, offering comfort, solidarity, and care.
Research shows that survivors of sexual assault can experience post-traumatic stress comparable to that of veterans returning from war, and that community plays a vital role in healing these unseen battle wounds (*Soraya Chemaly – The Resilience Myth). This understanding continues to shape my work.
Dianne Gall: I don’t have any individual women that inspire me, there are too many to list, but rather more of a type, those that have forged their own paths, stuck to their own visions, made something of themselves and shown inner strength to stand up for the principles they believe in.
What are some of the things you have learnt whilst working on this project?
Narelle Zeller: When I first began planning this work, I had quite ambitious ideas about how I could respond to the theme and what I wanted to say. After investing a lot of time exploring those directions, it ultimately felt more authentic to pare things back and stay aligned with the direction I am already working in as an artist.
This process reminded me how easy it is to over-question creative decisions, particularly when responding to a prescribed theme. One of the most valuable things I learnt was the importance of trusting my instincts and having faith in my existing visual language. By allowing the work to remain honest and restrained, I was able to create imagery that feels meaningful to me and, I hope, resonates with others as well.
Matthew Quick: This project reinforced how deeply embedded historical assumptions remain, even when we believe we’ve moved beyond them. Working with such a loaded visual tradition made it clear that progress is rarely linear; old ideologies don’t disappear, they linger, adapt, and resurface in new forms.
I also became increasingly aware of how displacement can function as a critical tool. By removing an object from its “correct” time, place, or cultural logic, its underlying power structures become visible. The project sharpened my understanding of how absurdity, when used carefully, can be a form of critique rather than humour alone.
Dianne Gall: Group shows come with limitations; however, it is very rare to have the theme aligned perfectly with my current series. It helps strengthened my resolve that I’m on the right path.
What has been the most challenging aspect of working on your contribution to this show and why?
Narelle Zeller: The most challenging aspect of contributing to this show was working through how to portray and celebrate feminine beauty in a way that felt honest to me. There are so many expectations around what feminine beauty should look like, and I didn’t want to lean into anything too idealised.
In the end, that clarity came through motherhood. I see my daughter as both beautiful and strong, and reimagining her as Venus felt like the most natural and truthful way to express that.
Matthew Quick: The greatest challenge was navigating the line between critique and repetition. When you work with historically sexualised forms, there’s always a risk of reinforcing the very gaze you’re attempting to dismantle.
The solution wasn’t avoidance, but confrontation; introducing elements that actively destabilise the original reading rather than soften it. Ensuring that the work retained ambiguity without slipping into nostalgia or aesthetic comfort required constant recalibration.
Dianne Gall: Choosing an image that hints at my message without being too obvious.
What do you hope viewers can take away with them after viewing your work in Venus Reclaimed?
Narelle Zeller: I hope viewers can appreciate the work as a beautiful, intimate portrait, while also seeing Venus as a strong and empowered female presence.
Matthew Quick: I hope viewers leave with a heightened awareness of how much of what we accept as “natural” or “beautiful” is historically manufactured. If the work succeeds, it should feel slightly uncomfortable; not because it shocks, but because it exposes contradictions we’ve learned to overlook. More than anything, I’d like the work to prompt reflection on how far we’ve come, how far we haven’t, and how easily inherited symbols continue to shape contemporary attitudes. If viewers find themselves questioning not just the sculpture, but their own assumptions about femininity, power, and cultural inheritance, then the work has done what it set out to do.
Kathrin Longhurst: Maybe a sense of solidarity with women and how they view the world or maybe the permission to view gender as fluid rather than fixed. We know that fixed gender roles are damaging to both men and women as well as anyone in-between, especially men often miss out on the incredible bonds and friendships that can be established only when you allow yourself to be vulnerable and embrace feminine traits such as gentleness, emotional openness, nurturing and caring.
Dianne Gall: Inspired by Botticelli’s mythical painting of the past, this Modern Venus is confident, independent, and mysterious, carrying untold stories, secrets held and poised for what comes next.
A truly contemporary image, Venus sits alone in a car contemplating herself in what is seemingly a generational symbol, worthy of study for its psychological motivations and its influence on mental health and social dynamics. How do you use your social media and mobile phone?
