2026 Solo Commission, Devonport Regional Gallery, 21 March – 16 May 2026
Mooning series: Gothic Mooning, 2026, digital photography, size variable
This year marks the eighteenth Solo Commission awarded by Devonport Regional Gallery. The Solo Commission was established in 2005 to provide a Tasmanian artist who has demonstrated a high level of skill and innovation through their practice with the opportunity to develop a new body of work for a solo exhibition.
In 2026, the Solo Commission was awarded to Édith Perrenot, a French/Australian interdisciplinary artist based in Hobart. As noted by Andrew Harper in the following essay, Édith clearly expresses her sentiments on being a woman in the 21st century. Fortunately, her thoughts are not internalised or reduced to enormous eye rolls; instead, they are channelled into making art which gives us plenty of food for thought. Édith’s works expresses that which still needs to be said when you have run out of words, and what you are left with is reaction and actions that reveal a discontent with the status quo.
On behalf of the Devonport Regional Gallery, I would like to congratulate Édith on Malice, Tribology or the Joy of shooting back – a thought provoking, and humorous exhibition that may raise a few eyebrows but will undoubtedly give cause to valuable conversations.
Birgitta Magnusson-Reid, Visual Arts Coordinator – Devonport Regional Gallery
Text by Andrew Harper.
UNRULY
Rowdy, wild, unkempt, disobedient, infuriated, ungoverned, loud, wilful, boisterous, belligerent, untamed, wayward, violent, unmanageable, quarrelsome, women. The women that turn over tables and burn down churches, the women who do not contain their rage. Édith Perrenot is such a woman. There is no getting past this, so we shall state it outright: she is likely angry, certainly pissed off, righteously annoyed and justifiably enraged, and if you are asking why, we might politely suggest you have not been paying attention: the world turned to blazing landfill some years back, and is now molten rivers of hot refuse belching toxic smoke. Perrenot is not paralysed by this, but she also knows she can only do so much. The choice to make art was a choice to make unruly art, then: not so much political as politicised by the near literal sewer pump churning from every screen.
It does not stop.
It is exhausting.
Making art is a fair reaction and it is something that can actually be done: Édith has unleashed her malice, and sought to share it, embody it, and taken some time to make it mean as much as she can.
Open Fire, 2026, porcelain and brown clay on painted plywood, 1220x1220x35mm
There are layers. There are guns. Guns are confronting. Perhaps they are the most confronting objects you could invoke in art. Guns have allegiances and associations: drug dealers, freedom fighters, criminals, Police, Luigi Magioni (yes, the ghost gun he partially printed, and then committed murder with is represented).
Hot wheels Altar series (from left to right): On the walls | The Burning | Night Creatures | 2026, collected melted metal pieces from burned cars , painted plywood, 270x 320x95mm (size variable)
