VIA DELLA FORNACE 41 50125 FIRENZE
Is an Australian artist who has gained a reputation for her large scale photographs that explore representations of women and feminine iconography throughout art history and mythology. Her photographs are rich with mythological and historical symbolism and imbued with a sense of the surreal and uncanny. Symbolic animals and females often appear together in her work to represent psyche and identity. Her work is held in many public collections including National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, Art Gallery of Western Australia. In 2019 the National Gallery of Victoria held a major survey show of Hicks work, titled ‘Bleached Gothic’. This exhibition included fifty photographs and video works spanning the period 2003 to 2019. From June-September 2021 Hicks survey show ‘Gothique Blanc’ was held at the Australian Embassy, Paris, France displaying photographs spanning the period 2003 to 2019.
With the exhibition Mythologies, Petrina Hicks reimagines mythical narratives such as those of Medusa and Adam and Eve, choosing animals with powerful symbolic resonance – serpents, felines, and birds – as co-protagonists in her photographs. Through this lens, she explores the complexity of female identity and the spiritual dimension of the bond between women and animals. In her vision, animals are closer to the “divine” than humans, as they exist in a state of pure awareness; women, in turn, are closer to animals, being more attuned to the deep unity that connects all forms of life.
In her images,… pale muses are wrapped in albino pythons like in ancient rituals, ghostly barn owls soar through the air, and ethereal cats fix the lens with magnetic gazes. Constantly evoking a mythical dimension rooted in classical antiquity, Hicks’ photographs reveal a universe suspended between instinct and magic–a realm beyond the visible, where animals and humans reconnect and recognize one another through their shared gaze, as distinct beings within a single, continuous flow of existence. 
