A new exhibition at Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery draws attention to the work of four exceptional artists whose work is grounded in relationships of place and community.

Fifty years on from the first International Women’s Year, Place Makers seeks to bring to the foreground the capacity and contribution of women artists to culture.

Each artist takes inspiration from the gritty realities of everyday life to reframe moments as extraordinary, with nuanced and closely observed narratives offering diverse perspectives.

Lee Kinsella, curator of the exhibition and Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, said she continued to be struck by the capacity of the artists to draw audiences into their worlds.

“I see these artists as powerful advocates and activists, who produce highly evocative work,” Ms Kinsella said.

The exhibition features artworks by Fiona Foley, a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist from K'gari (Fraser Island), Queensland, who applies a Badtjala lens to historical records and interrogates colonial legacies in contemporary Australian culture.

Margaret Morgan’s artworks draw from her experience of gender as she interrogates hierarchies of value embedded within the Western art canon and popular culture.

Both Foley and Morgan have forged internationally recognised creative practices that are critical and conceptual in scope.  While their work speaks to a broad contemporary art audience, they draw from their own lived experiences and the intergenerational histories that shaped them.

Edith Trethowan (1901–1939) is best known for her intricate wood prints documenting the transformation of the landscape during a period of urban and agricultural development in Western Australia.  

Gladys Milroy, a Palyku woman who was born in Perth in 1927 and a member of the Stolen Generations, has led a life of passionate advocacy, creativity, and knowledge-sharing.

Her artworks create imaginative worlds that explore profound ideas around healing and reconnection, colonisation and environmental destruction, and the agencies and rights of children.

While Trethowan and Milroy came from very different backgrounds their stories overlap, as both lived through the 1920s on Noongar Country.

Place Makers opens on Friday 26 September from 6 to 8pm and the exhibition runs until December 6.  The gallery is open Tuesday to Sunday from 11am to 4pm and admission is free. For more information or to register for the opening night, as places are limited, visit the gallery website.