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Darren Knight Gallery
840 Elizabeth St, Waterloo NSW 2017, Australia
Waterloo, New South Wales – January 13, 2026 – Darren Knight Gallery is pleased to present Rewilding, an exhibition featuring nine American contemporary artists who explore landscape as their subject matter. Organized by John Melick, the exhibition runs from February 7th to March 21st, 2026. The opening reception will be held on February 7th, from 3-5pm.Rewilding offers a range of perspectives through works that were created from 2020 to 2025. The artists presented have either reconnected to or delved back into nature during this time while exploring escapism, lurking anxieties, meditation, and myth making. Akin to many Australian artists engaging with nature as subject matter over the last several years, these established, emerging and self-taught American artists also offer a nuanced reconsideration of the traditional landscape genre at a time when America is also wrestling with its cultural identity in the world. The exhibition includes painting, works on paper, postcards, photography, and sculpture.
Artists in Rewilding are:
- George Bolster (b.1972, Cork, Ireland, lives and works in New York, NY)
- William Eric Brown (b.1969, Buenos Aires, Argentina, lives and works in New York, NY)
- Kyle Johnson (b.1982, Bakersfield, CA, lives and works in Los Angeles, CA)
- Kasper Kovitz (b.1968, Vienna, Austria, lives and works in Los Angeles, CA)
- Keiko Narahashi (b.1959, Tokyo, Japan, lives and works in New York, NY)
- David Opdyke (b.1969, Schenectady, NY, lives and works in Queens, NY)
- Emilio Perez (b.1972, New York, NY, lives and works in Brooklyn, NY)
- Kate Shepherd (b.1961, New York, NY, lives and works in New York, NY and Marfa, TX)
- Mary Temple (b.1957, Phoenix, AZ, lives and works in Brooklyn, NY)
In many respects, the presentation of this American contemporary landscape exhibition in an Australian gallery serves as a cultural and social bridge, highlighting the conversation surrounding the connection to nature and an acute environmental awareness that resonates across both continents. Many contemporary Australian artists also share a deep and often critical engagement with the land—from the vast, challenging topographies of the US West and outback Australia to the shared concerns of the climate, colonial settlement history, and the politics of space. By hosting Rewilding, Darren Knight Gallery also encourages an international exchange that situates the distinctly American perspectives within a broader, global, and particularly Australian, context of artists’ attending visually to the land.
As an Australian working in the New York art world for more than 30 years, exhibition organizer John Melick has long-standing relationships with many of the artists and has long been an ardent proponent of cultural exchange between the United States and Australia. This transcultural position allows him to draw out the texture of the potent cultural, historical and geopolitical ties between the two countries, identifying shared creative currents that transcend dominating conflicts and misunderstandings. According to Melick, “Since the pandemic and during elevated socio-political discord, I observed many American artists return to nature as muse. Rewilding highlights this subtle but resonant turn.”
Gallery Talk: On February 21 at 4pm, Stolon Press will host a talk related to the subject matter of the exhibition with Nicholas Croggon from University of Sydney’s Power Institute and Quentin Sprague, writer and curator.
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For more information and images, please contact:
In Australia:
Darren Knight Gallery
info@darrenknightgallery.com
In the United States:
Max Kruger-Dull
max@bluemedium.com
The Darren Knight Gallery acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of the land upon which the gallery stands. We acknowledge and pay our respects respect their continuing culture and the contribution they make to the life of this region. |
