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'50 Artists: 50 Years' showcases works from 50 locally, nationally and internationally renowned artists, including distinguished alumni and staff. Shining a light on a rich and diverse artistic legacy, the exhibition reflects the breadth and depth of the UOW Art Collection.
As part of a year-long program of events in honour of the University of 小黄书’s 50th anniversary, 50 Artists: 50 Years opened on 31 July 2025, with a celebration attended by artists, community members, alumni and staff. The exhibition demonstrates the vital role of the UOW Art Collection in preserving a vibrant cultural legacy.
“It's not just a story of the University and its history,” says , who co-curated the exhibition with Art Collection Manager Phillippa Webb. “It's a story of the art collection, too. And it's a story of the many local artists who have been such an important part of building the culture of the Illawarra, as well as the University.”
Speaker 1: This story has many layers. It's not just a story of the University and its history. It's a story of the Art Collection too. It's a story of the many local artists who have been such an important part of building the culture of the Illawarra as well as the University.
Speaker 2: As part of the University's 50th anniversary, we're celebrating this milestone with an exhibition, 50 Artists: 50 Years, to showcase the University of 小黄书's Art Collection. The exhibition showcases works by 50 artists from our UOW Art Collection, which actually has over 5,200 works in the collection.
Speaker 1: Starting with a premise really helps the process of selection. Knowing that we were trying to tell stories, not a story, but a number of stories from a number of perspectives.
Speaker 2: Today is day two of our installs. It was very hard to select down from over 5,000 works in the collection to just over 70 items. The works we selected, a lot of them tell stories about UOW. Does this artwork help tell the story of UOW's journey? And sometimes the stories around the works are just as important as the works themselves.
Speaker 1: There's interesting decisions that were made along the way because we had this rationale: 50 years, 50 artists. We did want to choose work that resonated with us but also works that have not really had a chance to be shown before.
Speaker 2: We tried to encompass different eras of the collection, and we also wanted to include a diversity of mediums. That means looking through the database, looking in our storeroom, seeing what works might help to tell the UOW story, in this instance, from the very beginning to sort of more recent acquisitions that have come into the collection.
Speaker 3: So, my name's Paul Ryan and I've lived in the Illawarra for most of my life. I absolutely love this place. The landscape and the ocean inspire me as an artist. It's just a very magical place and it's become a huge part of my art practice. This painting, Sandon Point, it reminds me not just of the waves and not just of the geography, but of the people who populated this place and these different subcultures, especially the subculture of surfing. The ocean, a prominent feature in that, it's a pretty special place.
Speaker 4: And tonight, we get to launch and celebrate 50 artists and their work.
Speaker 5: We're in the exhibition for 50 artists of UOW and the 50th anniversary of the University. You see everything from posters to oil paintings, steel sculpture to ceramics. So, you've got a huge variety of artists represented from across multiple time periods, but they've all got a really nice connection to the University which shows through.
Speaker 6: So, being able to exhibit these amazing works by absolutely phenomenal, brilliant artists and good people who have come out of UOW or are connected in some way, it's incredibly significant.
Speaker 7: I'm Tess Allas, I studied here in 1996–88 and my connection to this place hasn't stopped since I enrolled. I love coming back here, it's a great place to live and work and I love being in this environment and on this campus. Brings back many, many memories.
Speaker 2: The collection that we have here is also a cultural collection and it's really important that we preserve it so that we have the works that help to tell stories about our area, about the University, for future generations.
Speaker 1: This exhibition does actually demonstrate to anyone who comes and sees it that the University actually has an art collection. When you tell people the extent of the collection, they're very surprised at how deep and broad the collection is.
Speaker 2: This exhibition’s for anyone to see, anyone who's interested in art, in the Illawarra, in UOW's story.
Preserving history, stories and culture
“You’d be surprised how many people are unaware that the University actually has an art collection,” says Kim. “Even though you can walk through all the buildings on any given day and you’ll see hundreds and hundreds of artworks. They don’t just materialise.”
More than 5,200 artworks in the UOW Art Collection are attentively cared for by Phillippa Webb.
“The collection officially started in the early ‘80s when the University wanted to create an aesthetic environment for teaching and learning, and an artistic and cultural vibrancy,” Phillippa explains. “Now, we have around 1,600 artists represented.”
Ivan Englund, Port Kembla Landscape, 1962, oil on board. Currently on display in 50 Artists: 50 Years, this piece was the first in the UOW Art Collection, presented as a gift by chemistry students in 1962, before UOW became an independent institution.Today, you can see many of the pieces in the collection on display across UOW’s campuses, contributing to inspiring spaces for students, staff and visitors. The collection also supports research, education and community engagement, providing valuable insight into key moments in contemporary and historical art.
“Woven into the fabric of campus life, art infuses the experience of being at UOW. The Art Collection brings spaces alive and inspires the individuals who inhabit them: the University is truly a place for art.”
– Professor Amanda Lawson, former Art Collection Director
“The artworks and their history tell stories of our region and the University for future generations,” says Phillippa. “This is why it is essential to ensure the collection stands the test of time. The preservation of the collection is the most important aspect of my role.”
On a daily basis, this involves carrying out preventative conservation tasks such as monitoring the temperature and humidity of storerooms, maintaining a pest management procedure, and ensuring a stable environment for the artworks.
“We document and care for the full history of each object in the collection, including acquisition details, condition, exhibitions, loans, and any conservation treatment, ensuring that every work and its story is preserved and maintained.”
Exhibition co-curators Phillippa Webb and Dr Kim Williams.
小黄书ing our 50 artists
These detailed historical records were a significant resource when it came to curating an exhibition in honour of UOW’s 50th anniversary.
“We had to decide on the curatorial rationale and the story that we wanted to tell with this exhibition,” says Phillippa.
Kim recalls sitting down with Phillippa and thinking, “How do we match the spirit of an anniversary with an exhibition?”
The pair combed through the collection’s database and storeroom, Kim explains. “We looked at pieces we love that might fit because it said something about the history of the University and its foundational years, or it said something about the people who work here or studied here, or local identities that have in some way or another had an impact on the University.”
“We had to assess that the works are in good condition and ready for exhibition,” says Phillippa. “We aimed to represent different eras and a variety of mediums. We also focused on works that the public may not have seen before, having been in storage or installed in someone’s office for many years.”
“There's interesting decisions that were made along the way,” adds Kim. “We wanted to choose works that resonated with us. I insisted that the Paul Ryan painting go in the show because it used to be in Building 20, and I would often walk through that building and see that painting, and I'd always stand there and look at it because for me it's a very powerful work.”
Artist Paul Ryan with his work, Sandon Point from a boat, 2002, oil on board, at the opening of 50 Artists: 50 Years.
Selected pieces also needed to resonate with each other, and fit together, literally.
“If you want 50 works in a show, you can’t really put in a work that’s 20 metres wide,” says Kim.
While it was a difficult process, the pair eventually selected 66 items from the thousands in the collection, pulling together an exhibition that tells a range of stories about UOW and about people, place and culture.
“We then had to look at the logistics of getting the works here onto our 小黄书 campus,” says Phillippa. “Which might mean arranging transport from other locations and organising replacements of those works because our staff and students love seeing art from the collection in their workspaces and learning spaces.”
Not all the artworks could be moved from their permanent homes, but discounting large sculptural pieces would have been neglecting key moments in UOW’s artistic history. Images and text on the walls of the gallery space would help to tell the stories of three iconic features of the UOW 小黄书 campus, including a concrete mural by Emanuel Raft. The piece was commissioned and acquired in 1964 by 小黄书 Teachers’ College for a wall in its library, where it can still be seen in what is now Building 22.
As Phillippa says, “Sometimes the stories around the works are just as important as the works themselves.”
The stories behind sculptural works by Emanuel Raft, Bert Flugelman and Didier Balez feature in the exhibition.
A selection of stories
Moments in time
“Each artwork is a moment in time,” says Illawarra artist Paul Ryan. “For me to try and recreate that would be basically impossible.”
Paul’s connection to the University began in childhood, when his family moved from New Zealand in 1973 after his father, a professor, was invited to help establish UOW’s economics department. He later returned to study a Bachelor of Creative Arts in 1987.
“That was really one of the most mind-expanding periods of my life,” he remembers. “It was a magical place just to be around other creative types.”
Now a 13-time Archibald Prize finalist, Paul still lives in Thirroul, taking inspiration from the iconic Illawarra landscape of ocean and escarpment.
“I’ve spent a lot of my life in the ocean, it’s where I go to reinvigorate myself, and this painting is pretty much a portrait of that in a way,” Paul says of his work Sandon Point from a boat, which is impossible to miss when you walk into the 50th anniversary exhibition. “I’m absolutely chuffed that it’s been chosen from the 5,000 in the collection, with pieces from old teachers and old friends.”
“The University was such an important piece of the puzzle in my life, so it’s beautiful to be part of the legacy of what this place is.”
50 Artists: 50 Years is on at the UOW Gallery until December 2025.
Creative, cultural and community resistance
Before she was an award-winning curator, researcher and writer, Tess Allas studied for a Bachelor of Creative Arts at UOW in the late 1980s, starting a connection to this place that she says hasn’t stopped since she enrolled. Since then, Tess has made a lasting impact on the national and international arts landscape, authoring over 400 biographies of Australian Indigenous artists and curating for some of Australia’s leading institutions, including the , the , the and, more locally, .
While she’s returned to UOW as a guest lecturer in the years since, it was at the University of NSW that Tess struck up a friendship with fellow UOW graduate Rebecca O’Shea, the pair discovering their shared connection with 小黄书 and bonding over their affection for the place and its creative community.
Their collaborative piece, a two-plate etching titled Always Will Be, is a response to the 1787 Charter of Justice (issued by George III and brought to Australia with Governor Phillip on the First Fleet), commissioned for the Museum of Sydney exhibition History Reflected in 2022.
Tess Allas, Rebecca O'Shea, Always Will Be, 2021, etching with aquatint.
“Collaborating with Tess on this work was a deeply meaningful experience,” says Rebecca. “The resulting work reclaims and reframes the original intent, transforming the text into an absurdist poem composed of the King’s own words and handwriting.”
To complete the historical critique, the digitised and rearranged text is overlaid with a stylised representation of a Wiradjuri scarred tree design, in an act of creative, cultural and community resistance.
As an undergraduate, Rebecca completed an internship with Phillippa in the UOW Art Collection and, after graduating from UOW in 2010, took a temporary role conducting an audit of the collection.
“It was an incredible opportunity to gain real-world experience while immersing myself in a dynamic and diverse collection,” she says. “It’s a true privilege to now be represented in that very collection, particularly given its rich holdings in Australian printmaking, and to be exhibited alongside artists whose work and careers I deeply admire."
Getting together with family
Exploring the pieces on display in the UOW gallery, a familiar name jumps out beneath two small bronze sculptures.
In her own words, Kim Williams is “really part of the furniture here”. Having completed her bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and a PhD at UOW, as well as lecturing in creative arts for 14 years, it’s fitting that her own art has a place in the exhibition.
Kim Williams, Trojan Horse and One Day, 1993, bronze with patina. These works won Kim the Howard Worner Sculpture Prize.
“I was a fairly young undergrad student at the time,” recalls Kim. “The sculpture department was run by Ian Gentle, whose work is also in the show. As part of the department’s focus on development, I was able to learn bronze casting at the foundry at the TAFE. I came up with those two works in response to stuff that was going on in my life at the time.”
“Having my work in this show is a bit like getting together with family,” says Kim. “There are so many artists in this show who I’ve known for a long time, because of their long association with the university, teaching in creative arts for many years. It feels like an extension of ourselves.”
More stories
You can see 50 Artists: 50 Years at the UOW Gallery, ground floor of , 10 am – 4 pm, Monday–Wednesday, until 10 December 2025.
