R I V E R G HOST

Tanya Sparke

May 4 to May 9. 2026.

We place equal amounts of faith and rubbish in our rivers. Refracted, reflected, shadowed, lit, upside down, fragile, stinky, sacred, luminous, beautiful. The sacred persists without purity.

Painting and sculpture about the edges of landscape and emotion. Sacred geographies where grief sits in the land. Rivers, rocks, trees holding a complex understanding of the spirit of place. The silence that remains in damaged ground and my silence. Im following that presence rather than illustrating it. Exchanges between river, sky, oil, trees and what no longer floats except presence.

Real and mythological memory, together.

This is the Goolay’Yari, the Cooks River. Sydney. One of Australia’s most polluted river systems. Grief landscapes mark time.