Consuelo Cavaniglia
seeing through you

Contemporary Art Project #6: an artist intervention in the Chau Chak Wing Museum
Consuelo Cavaniglia has been commissioned to develop a major contemporary art project to engage with the Museum’s extensive collections and architecture.

Consuelo Cavaniglia’s project represents the first time an artist has been invited to respond directly to the architecture of the Chau Chak Wing Museum. Cavaniglia intensifies the viewer’s experience of the interior spaces as they navigate the building, by colouring the ‘lantern’ skylight, and by intervening onto glass surfaces to create perceptual shifts. 

In the Penelope Gallery, she has selected objects from the Chau Chak Wing Museum’s collection, including optical instruments and glass from the ancient world, which are presented alongside her own recent works.

The artist has also selected to display artworks from the collection by Lily Greenham (1924–2001), and Martha Boto (1925–2004). Cavaniglia celebrates these women artists and connects her own practice to theirs in a lineage of engagement with abstraction, colour, light, and perception.

Cavaniglia’s interest in perception extends to the ways that voices are represented within the museum. The artist has invited women and gender-diverse staff members to reflect on their experience of the museum and its collections. Their responses create alternative narratives to the more formal voice of museum wall labels, reframing the experience of the museum and its collections through personal perspectives.

About the artist

Consuelo Cavaniglia has exhibited extensively in Australia, with key solo exhibitions at Perth Institute for Contemporary Arts, Boorloo/Perth; Gertrude Contemporary, Narrm/Melbourne, University of NSW Galleries, Gadigal land/Sydney. In 2019, Cavaniglia was included in the inaugural Macfarlane Commissions exhibition at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. She studied at the University of Western Australia followed by Curtin University. In 2017, she was awarded a Master of Fine Art, from Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney. She is represented by STATION.


Curated by Katrina Liberiou

Header image: Consuelo Cavaniglia: seeing through you, 2024. Hand blown glass, acrylic; scientific instruments from the collection. Courtesy of the artist and STATION. Photo by David James

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.

This project is supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.

Penelope Gallery, Level 1; throughout the museum

Now open