Michael Vale: Exhibition floor talk

Meet Michal Vale & hear about all his painterly quirks in his fascinating show "The Cuckoo, the Herring, and the Trembling Tambourines"

Join Curator Rebecca Owens for a special floor talk exploring the work of Melbourne-based artist Michael Vale, whose paintings blend Romantic landscape traditions with absurdist theatre, dark fiction and a sly sense of humour.

Over several decades, Vale has developed a distinctive visual language where spectral characters and theatrical costumes appear in grand, dramatic settings, creating scenes that are at once playful, unsettling and richly imaginative.

A highlight of the exhibition is Picnic (2024), Vale’s tongue-in-cheek take on the traditional still life. Drawing on an eclectic mix of art-historical and photographic references, the painting brings together a band of curious travellers—from a blue umbrella-holding figure inspired by a photograph of Picasso, to a turkey borrowed from John Currin—set against a sweeping 16th-century mountain landscape. The result is a witty, layered composition that captures Vale’s love of storytelling, visual mischief and unexpected encounters.

A winner of the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize and long-time Monash University lecturer, Vale invites viewers into a world where theatre, literature and painting collide.

Image: Picnic 2024 (detail), oil on linen, Courtesy of the Artist