COLLABORATIONS

Breathing Helps at TarraWarra Museum of Art is a solo exhibition by acclaimed Australian artist Rose Nolan, running from 9 August to 9 November 2025. Curated by Dr Victoria Lynn, the exhibition brings together Nolan’s large-scale sculptural installations for the first time, including the monumental To Keep Going Breathing Helps (circle work) 2016-17.

Known for her minimalist red-and-white aesthetic and use of everyday materials, Nolan explores the intersection of text, space, and viewer engagement. The exhibition highlights Nolan’s spatial and performative approach, presenting works from across her career alongside new site-specific commissions and large-scale silkscreen prints that challenge traditional representations of female artists.

Rose Nolan is a Naarm/Melbourne-based artist and educator whose multidisciplinary practice encompasses painting, sculpture, photography, and printmaking. Her work navigates the tension between the intimate and the monumental, drawing on architectural, interior, and graphic design codes while engaging playfully with the legacies of modernism.

Nolan’s practice is distinguished by an investigation into the formal and linguistic properties of language, employing text as both a visual and spatial device to interrogate its materiality and site-specific impact. By rendering language concrete, her work destabilises conventional readings, prompting alternative forms of engagement. Nolan’s approach foregrounds economy, repetition, and seriality. Her work is inherently relational, emphasising the dynamic interplay between text, space, and audience. Through these approaches, Nolan constructs work that are personal, playful, and often self-effacing inviting viewers to engage with language and space in new and unexpected ways. Each piece challenges established hierarchies of meaning and perception, fostering an active and immersive experience.