Born in rural South Australia (1992) and raised in far East Gippsland, Bonnie’s densely populated surreal paintings bear traces of life off grid in Australia at an unlikely intersection between DIY and romanticism. Her work engages in discourse that is at once figurative and literal: addressing place and our relationship with the natural world, queer perspectives, embodiment, corporeality, and morality.
For Bonnie, painting is deeply rooted to analogue processes of building, making, and touchability. Working in a sustained state of inquiry, each piece is an isolated negotiation between intention and response in collaboration with materials.
Using dying techniques incorporating wax, salt and beading, she treats the surface more like a textile than a painting. Paintings are perpetually built back onto, cut and re-configured, stretched and unstretched. The porosity of raw fabric retains evidence of its own making, a geological quality that speaks to the notion of layering in the natural earth that is mirrored in bodily experience.
Bonnie currently lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne. She completed a Master of Fine Art at RMIT in 2023 where she was awarded the Lowenstein’s Arts Management Prize. Earlier this year, he was shortlisted for the 2026 Midsumma Art Award, was awarded the Red Salon Art Prize at Red Gallery’s Inaugural Art Prize and received an Honourable Mention at Brunswick Street Gallery’s 2026 Small Works Prize. She has held solo exhibitions in commercial and artist run galleries throughout Melbourne and rural Victoria and participated in numerous group exhibitions. Her work is held in Federation University’s permanent collection and private collections both locally and internationally.
CV
Bonnie-Jean Whitlock b.1992
EDUCATION
2023 - Master of Fine Art, RMIT University
2014 - Bachelor of Fine Art, Federation University
2012 - Diploma of Visual Art, University of Ballarat
2010 - Certificate 2 in Visual Arts and Contemporary Craft, Bombala TAFE
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2026 - Hungry I’ve Fallen, Red Gallery, Fitzroy, Melbourne (Upcoming)
2026 - Apophenie Junk Pile, Red Gallery, Fitzroy, Melbourne
2025 - Beacons, Red Gallery, Fitzroy, Melbourne
2024 - SUBTERRA, West End Gallery, West Melbourne
2022 - Dawn Chorus, Post Gallery, Brunswick
2019 - 2020 - Untitled Solo Feature, Daddy Bar, Brunswick
2019 - Deep Sea Diving, Artspace 264, Glen Huntly Melbourne
2017 - Untitled Solo Feature, Meigas, Ballarat
2016 - Untitled Solo Feature, Babushka bar, Ballarat
SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026 - The Shape We Take At Night, China Heights Gallery, Sydney (Upcoming)
2026 - Affordable Art Fair, Melbourne
2026 - Feeling First, Red Gallery, Fitzroy, Melbourne
2026 - Midsumma Art Prize, No Vacancy, Melbourne
2026 - Red Inaugural Art Prize, Red Gallery, Fitzroy, Melbourne
2026 - Small Works Prize, Brunswick Street Gallery, Fitzroy, Melbourne
2025 - SMALL!, Forty five downstairs, Melbourne
2025 - Stockroom exhibition, Red Gallery, Fitzroy, Melbourne
2025 - Sonic's Gallery, Thornbury, Melbourne
2024 - VISCERA, Sol Gallery, Fitzroy, Melbourne
2024 - Emerge: O UT, Brunswick Street Gallery Fitzroy, Melbourne
2023 - RMIT University Graduate Exhibition, RMIT Melbourne City Campus
2023 - The Cure, Guerilla ARI, Melbourne
2023 - Out Of This World, Abbotsford Convent, Melbourne
2022 - Compact: Small work, Alternating Current Artspace, Windsor, Melbourne
2020 - Going Home with BASKWA, Guerilla ARI, Melbourne
2018 - Floating mantis, Lupine Studios, Coburg, Melbourne
2017 - Tanglewood Music and Arts Festival, Thornton, Victoria
2017 - Stacks on, Ceres Environmental Park, Melbourne
2015 - Paper Made, Wakeden University, Carolina U.S.А
2015 - Bloom, The Convent Gallery, Daylesford
2015 - Рaper Made, the Post Office Gallery, Ballarat
AWARDS
2026 - Red Salon Prize - Red Gallery
2026 - Finalist - Midsumma Art Prize
2026 - Small Works Prize Honourable Mention - Brunswick Street gallery
2023 - Lowenstein's Arts Management Award - RMIT University
2012 - Adrienne Guy Award - Federation University
2012 - Deputy Vice Chancellor Acquisition Award - Federation University