About Us

Housed in an iconic heritage building in the heart of Perth, PICA is the place to experience the very best of local, Australian and international contemporary arts in Western Australia.

Over its 30 plus-year history, PICA has operated as both a producing and presenting organisation, delivering an annual program of changing exhibitions, seasons in contemporary dance, experimental theatre, new music and live art as well as a range of artist-in-residence programs.

PICA works with artists who are trail-blazers, exemplars, innovators and change-makers, and acts as a site for challenging and timely conversations.

Its programs are carefully crafted, ensuring connections are forged not only between artists and audiences but across art forms, cultures and geographies. For artists, audiences and other communities it serves, PICA is a meeting place, a provocateur, a resource and most importantly a partner in the realisation of big and new ideas.

Our Purpose

To engage, nurture and value contemporary artists, ideas and audiences.

Our Vision

To be the home of contemporary arts in Western Australia.

Our Values

Visionary Thinking – We work with artists at the forefront of culture and ideas, encouraging experimentation, innovation, free-thinking and fresh voices. 

Connection – We support artists to create enriching and thought-provoking experiences that connect with diverse communities.  

Pathways – We work with artists and arts workers at all stages of their careers, creating opportunities that respond to their needs and sustain their practice. 

Belonging – We are committed to building a supportive environment of integrity and accountability where people feel seen, heard and supported. Working together is central to everything we do. 

Sustainability – We collectively imagine and contribute to a sustainable and more equitable future for the arts, and society more broadly. 

History

Housed in a large and striking heritage building in the Perth Cultural Centre, Western Australia, PICA was incorporated in 1989 but its emergence was preceded by the commitment and hard work undertaken over five years by its founders. Securing PICA’s eventual location, in what was originally the Perth Central School, was fundamental to that process.

The new organisation partly ‘follow[ed] on from Praxis (Western Australia’s former Contemporary Art Space now amalgamated with PICA), which had a 15-year history of producing an important program of visual arts exhibitions, publications and special projects. Praxis had been a part of a network of contemporary art spaces across Australia; organisations which had their origins in the alternative spaces of the 1970s, and which at their best were critical, challenging and provocative.

The intention of those people and groups involved in the development of the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts was that it would provide a new forum for the analysis and presentation of critical and contemporary art practice. This practice would include the visual arts, music, dance and performance along with their contemporary and interdisciplinary variants but would be wider than any list of art forms… Fundamental to the concept of PICA was that culture was not an isolated province but intimately connected to the social, economic, psychological and political dimensions of contemporary life.’ 1

The late Noel Sheridan was the inaugural Director of PICA from 1989–93. During this time he put his vision into action by delivering a dynamic program and overseeing the initial renovation of the building that PICA still calls home. He was succeeded by Sarah Miller, who from 1993–2006 continued PICA’s development into one of the country’s most innovative, best-known and loved contemporary arts venues in Australia. In 2006, Amy Barrett-Lennard was appointed as Director. She led the evolution of PICA until August 2022, responding to the changing needs and desires of artists and audiences with the ultimate goal of forging an inclusive space that sits at the nexus of art, innovation and community. In October 2022, Hannah Mathews joined PICA as its new CEO.

1. John Barrett-Lennard, ‘A spacious central location…’, catalogue essay for A spacious central location: installations for PICA and the Cultural Centre, (Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, 1990), p.4

Education to Art – PICA History Booklet

Delve deeper into PICA’s archives this 2023 publication that details PICA’s history from 1896 to now.

Team

Hannah Mathews – Director/CEO
Alana Culverhouse – General Manager
Anne Tunnecliffe – Development Manager
Michael Bullock – Operations Manager
Georgia Hayward – Curator
Mia Palmer-Verevis – Hatched Curatorial Associate 2025-26
Lizzy Doepel – Exhibitions Manager
Laetitia Wilson – boorda yeyi Producer
William Gammel – Production Manager
Maile Bowen – Public Programs & Studios Manager
Chandler Abrahams – Program Management Associate 2026
Jenn Garland – Learning & Access Manager
Isaac Huggins – Learning & Access Associate 2025-26
Maria Sioulas – Strategic Communications Manager
Kauri Minhinnick – Campaign & Content Manager
Cooper Fare – Design
Liam Ayres – Digital Communications Assistant
Manda Campbell – Visitor Services Manager
Suzanne Fielding – Finance

Board

Sarkis Akopov – Board Member
Sarkis Akopov is a motivated and enthusiastic leader. With his positive attitude and collaborative approach, he has earned the trust of colleagues and clients alike. Sarkis’s strength lies in his logical and analytical mindset, coupled with his exceptional numerical skills. He is constantly seeking new challenges and opportunities to enhance his expertise in areas such as strategic planning, financial analysis, change management, IFRS, and US GAAP. His dedication to his craft is evident in the exceptional results he consistently delivers.

Clothilde Bullen, OAM – Board Member
Clothilde Bullen OAM is a Wardandi (Noongar) and Badimaya (Yamatji) woman, curator, writer and advocate whose work has shaped contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts practice in Australia. She is currently Manager, ECU Art, Culture and Collections at Edith Cowan University, where she leads the development and stewardship of the University’s cultural assets. Previously, she was Lead, Cultural Strategy and Development, where she finalised ECU’s Cultural Narrative strategy.

Before joining ECU, Bullen held senior curatorial roles at the Art Gallery of Western Australia and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, where she was the inaugural Senior Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Collections and Exhibitions. Her award-winning exhibitions include Richard Bell: You Can Go Now and John Mawurndjul: I am the old and the new. Bullen has held many board and advisory roles, including Chair of the National Association for the Visual Arts and the Australian chapter of the International Association of Art Critics. She has published widely, co-edited Artlink and championed pathways for First Nations writers and arts workers. In 2025, she was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the arts, particularly Indigenous arts.

Minali Gamage – Board Member
Minali Gamage is a governance, risk and audit professional with 18 years’ experience working primarily with critical infrastructure and global mining companies, both as a management consultant and in-house. Minali regularly supports the arts through advocacy, philanthropy, arts advisory roles, and collecting. She is the founder of perth.art.seeker, a social media-based information-sharing service about art exhibitions, events, and industry opportunities in and around Perth.\

Dr Andrew Lu, AM – Chair
Dr Andrew Lu AM is President of the Mental Health Tribunal, Chair of PICA and Australian Baroque, and a non-executive director of SBS, Melbourne International Film Festival, and the Australian Youth Orchestra. His 30 years of governance experience includes board roles with the Arts Law Centre of Australia, National Gallery of Australia Foundation, Jigsaw, Chamber of Arts and Culture WA, AGWA Foundation, and the Canberra Symphony Orchestra. A graduate of UWA Law School with a research Doctorate in Law from ANU and a Master of Laws from New England, he was a litigation partner and solicitor in private practice with global and Australian law firms for 21 years. He also served on the State Administrative Tribunal and the Reproductive Technology Council. An Adjunct Professor of Curtin Law School, he is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Australian Academy of Law. An arts and inclusion advocate, he was named a Member of the Order of Australia in 2021.

Hannah Mathews – Board Member
Hannah Mathews is the Director/CEO of the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA). Over the last twenty years, she has held key curatorial positions at Monash University Museum of Art, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Next Wave, The South Project and the Biennale of Sydney. Hannah graduated with a Master of Art Curatorship from the University of Melbourne in 2002 and has completed curatorial residencies in New York, Berlin, Tokyo and Venice. She has taught in curatorial programs at Melbourne University, Monash University and RMIT University, Melbourne and has held various board positions, including National Association for the Visual Arts, City of Melbourne Arts & Culture and International Art Space, Perth. Her publication, To Note: Notation Across Disciplines won the inaugural Cornish Family Book Prize for Art and Design Publishing in 2018. 

Jeremy Smith – Board Member
Jeremy Smith is arts leader with more than 25 years’ experience across Australia’s creative industries. He has held senior roles with DADAA Inc, the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and Performing Lines WA, and spent nearly a decade in government arts funding with Creative Australia and ArtsWA. A WAAPA graduate, he began his career in production before moving into leadership, policy and community engagement. Since May 2025, Jeremy has been Head of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging at APM.

Proudly identifying as a queer, disabled man, Jeremy brings a deep commitment to intersectionality, equity and self-determination. He has led initiatives supporting disability arts, young people, regional communities and First Nations-led practice. He serves on the boards of ArtsPay Foundation, chairs pvi collective and contributed to Equity: The National Arts and Disability Associated Plan.

Saffron Solomon – Board Member
Saffron Solomon is a marketing and communications specialist with over 25 years’ experience across the human services, finance, insurance, arts and energy sectors. Passionate about working with organisations that drive leadership, impact and positive change, she is a long-time advocate for people with disability and a dedicated supporter of Western Australia’s arts and culture community. With expertise spanning marketing strategy and management, business growth and development, Saffron is currently General Manager, Marketing at APM – a global human services provider dedicated to enabling better lives through a network of more than 14,000 people across 11 countries. She also serves on the Boards of the Guildford Grammar Foundation and Solomon Hollett Lawyers and has previously held board roles with Artrage, and director roles with Interchange and Block Branding.

Paula Taylor – Board Member
Paula Taylor began her career in London by fundraising for the arts at the Royal Court Theatre and the Royal Academy of the Arts before becoming Awards Director at D&AD (Design and Art Direction). With over a decade at D&AD – a global non-profit dedicated to creative excellence – she led strategic initiatives across multiple continents, collaborating with leading advertising creatives, designers, filmmakers, technologists and brands. As co-founder of West Tech Fest and First NationsX, Paula is dedicated to fostering innovation, equality, diversity and social impact. She is a graduate of Curtin University and the Victorian College of the Arts.

Melvin Yeo – Board Member
Melvin Yeo is a company director and corporate lawyer with more than 25 years’ experience. He has a global client base, and has also co-founded various international mineral exploration projects. Melvin’s experience includes governance, strategic planning, legal affairs, capital raising, operational oversight and transaction negotiations. Melvin is a supporter of the arts and is a Trustee of the WA State Government’s Arts and Culture Trust. He is also a keen collector of contemporary works by Australian artists and has previously served on the Murdoch University Art Collection board. Melvin was also a co-founder and board member of Heritage Perth Inc.

Aboriginal Advisory Group

Our Aboriginal Advisory Group is made up of leading Aboriginal visual and performing artists and arts workers: Sharyn Egan, Stephen Gilchrist, Glenn Iseger-Pilkington, Rohin Kickett and Janine Oxenham.

By forming an Aboriginal Advisory Group, PICA seeks to embed the voices and cultural protocols of First Nations artists into the words and actions of what we do. PICA recognises the rights of First Nations people to oversee the representation of their diverse cultures. First Nations programming at PICA must therefore be First Nations-led.

Sharyn Egan
Sharyn Egan is a Noongar woman who began creating art at the age of 37, which lead to her enrolling in a Diploma of Fine Arts at the Claremont School of Art in Perth. She completed this course in 1998 and enrolled in the Associate Degree in Contemporary Aboriginal Art at Curtin University, which she completed in 2000. In 2001 she was awarded a Bachelor of Arts (Arts) from Curtin University. She has also been awarded a Certificate VI in Training and Education in 2011. The themes in Egan’s work are informed by the experiences of her life as a Noongar woman.

Stephen Gilchrist
Belonging to the Yamatji people of the Inggarda language group of northwest Western Australia, Dr Stephen Gilchrist is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Indigenous Studies at The University of Western Australia. He is a writer and curator who has worked with the Indigenous Australian collections of the National Gallery of Australia, British Museum, National Gallery of Victoria and Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College (2011–2013). Gilchrist has curated numerous exhibitions in Australia and the United States and has written extensively on Indigenous Art from Australia. 2012–2016, he was the Australian Studies Visiting Curator at the Harvard Art Museums, Harvard University.

Glenn Iseger-Pilkington
Glenn Iseger-Pilkington (Nhanda and Noongar Peoples/Dutch/Scottish) is a curator, cultural strategist, writer and senior arts manager with more than 20 years of experience across visual arts, cultural leadership, community engagement and national advocacy. Glenn’s career spans senior positions at Fremantle Arts Centre, Western Australian Museum, Art Gallery of Western Australia, South Australian Museum, national First Nations visual arts initiatives and major government cultural projects in Western Australia.

Rohin Kickett
Rohin Kickett is a Balardong, Whadjuk Noongar artist born in Northam, Western Australia 1986. He spent his childhood years in Gosnells and now resides in Armadale, where he has been a full-time practising artist since 2017. Before becoming an artist, Kickett had completed an apprenticeship in Metal Fabrication and 1st Class Welding, where he spent 12 years in the metal fabrication industry. At 32, Rohin completed the Indigenous Tertiary Enabling Course at the Centre for Aboriginal Studies at Curtin University. Over the last six years, Kickett has participated in many exhibitions, held solo exhibitions, completed a residency along with international cultural exchange programs, and completed multiple public art projects.

Janine Oxenham
Janine Oxenham is a Malgana Yamatji woman from the Shark Bay area in WA. She has studied dance at both NAISDA College, NSW and WAAPA, WA. She has choreographed and performed as a freelance contemporary Indigenous dancer for numerous festivals in regional WA. In 2015 she mounted the work Willy Willy as part of the Ausdance’s Future Landings project. She has facilitated community dance groups and performed as part of the core crew for the travelling festival Creality (formerly Gascoyne in May) for the past nine years. More recently, Oxenham has worked as Movement Director and choreographer for Yirra Yaakin and Perth Festival productions of Hecate and Panawathi Girl.

Artist Advisory Group

Initiated in 2023, PICA’s Artist Advisory Group includes a panel of artists from across art forms and generations who work together to advise PICA on matters of importance to artists. Chaired by the current artist member of the PICA Board, the group is committed to including diverse experiences and perspectives and advocating for the needs of artists and the community.

Nazerul Ben-Dzulkefli
Nazerul Ben-Dzulkefli is a Singapore-born artist based in Boorloo (Perth), primarily working with ceramics. His practice sits between tradition and experimentation, often shaped by stories, languages and cultural fragments carried across seas, while being grounded in making, ritual practices, Malay myths and cosmologies. Ben-Dzulkeflihas presented work in various group exhibitions in Boorloo since 2017. He was selected as one of twenty-five most notable Australian art graduates of 2021 and was part of the Hatched: National Graduate Exhibition 2022 at Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts. Currently working as a Visual Art Technician at a K-12 school, he has also exhibited in the State Library of Western Australia, ECU’s Spectrum Project Space, Gallery Central, Stala Contemporary, Lawson Flats, Sweet Pea Arts, Gotham Artist Studios’ Peek-a-Boo micro gallery space, and Starch in Singapore.

Sam Bloor
Sam Bloor is a visual artist from Boorloo (Perth). Bloor’s background as a traditional signwriter informs his use of text provocations both in gallery spaces and site-specific public artworks.  A thematic underpinning of Bloor’s work is exploring the ways in which language is filtered through personal experience generating malleable outcomes of meanings from a single prompt. Bloor holds a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) from Curtin University and has exhibited in a number of group and solo shows both nationally and internationally including, Totem In Tribute, Edinburgh, UK (2016), The Fremantle Biennale (2019; 2023; 2025), Rotterdam Photo Festival, The Netherlands (2019). He was commissioned to produce a major public work as part of Perth Festival (2022) and travelled to Venice as a drawing technician on Kith and Kin—Archie Moore work that was awarded the Golden Lion at the 2024 Venice Biennale.

Kristen Brownfield
Kristen Brownfield is an artist and artsworker living in Boorloo (Perth).  Through artmaking, Kristen explores relationships to time, materials, memory, place and the environments in which we are entangled. Her work unfolds through observation and listening, is often temporal in nature or site-related, composed of found objects, photography, sound and video, writing and drawing. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts) from Edith Cowan University and a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art, Honours) from RMIT University. Brownfield currently works with ART ON THE MOVE, where she coordinates the Artist in Residence program, supporting artists to undergo residencies in regional WA. 

Jo Darbyshire
Jo Darbyshire is a visual artist living in Walyalup (Fremantle). Primarily a painter, she works across a variety of platforms in the arts. Jo’s abstract paintings often explore a strong relationship with the WA coast, her interest in its underwater landscapes and traces of colonial life. In other projects – including the ‘Gay Museum’ at the WA Museum (2003) and her artist-in-residence collaboration with Nyoongar artist Andrea Williams in Lake Grace as part of SPACED’s Rural Utopias program (2023) – she incorporates ideas about the archive and contemporary social history. Jo holds a Master of Creative Arts in Cultural Heritage from Curtin University (2004) and exhibits with Art Collective WA. 

Jensine Datu
Jensine Datu is an Australian-Filipinx early career artist living and working on Whadjuk Noongar country. Their interdisciplinary practice draws on their personal experiences and everyday observations to highlight and observe underlying structures of hierarchy, power dynamics and hidden trauma. Through repetition and subversion, they process the emergence of intuitive self-healing in their work. In 2019 they graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art from Curtin University and have been involved in group exhibitions at Cool Change Contemporary, Pig Melon and The Substation. They have undertaken residencies with Nod Space, Fremantle Arts Centre, Cool Change Contemporary and is currently taking part in Next Wave’s Kickstart Program.

Emma Fishwick
Emma Fishwick is a choreographer based in Boorloo (Perth), with an interdisciplinary practice that works across movement, digital media, writing, textiles and academic scholarship. Emma has worked extensively across Australia and abroad, lectures in Politics of Dance, Choreography, and is an Honours supervisor at Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA). In 2024, Emma completed her PhD research, Slow Choreographies, which addressed everyday sexisms in Australian universities through embodied creative methods. In 2025, Emma is a recipient of a Minderoo Artist Residency and participated in the ATLAS choreographic program at ImpulsTanz, Vienna.

Shanti Gelmi
Incorporating installation, sculpture, print and drawing, Shanti Gelmi delves into the intricate dynamics of human connection, identity and behaviour. Her works blend conceptual and process-driven techniques as she explores form and structure as a metaphor for interconnected existences, memory and experience. A first generation Australian of Indian migrants, Shanti often focuses on the struggle to preserve cultural heritage while assimilating into Australian society. She has a Bachelor of Contemporary Arts from Edith Cowan and is represented in the University’s Art Collection. Shanti was commissioned by Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts to develop her installation ‘Shadowed’ into a Virtual Reality experience in 2022, and her work is published in national and international art publications. 

Beverley Iles
Beverley Iles is a sculpture-based artist whose work examines the essence of place: how we make sense of what is around us, how we form connections with a site and how we live together in a literal and existential sense. As a migrant and adoptee, Isles is interested in belonging, stability, construction of personal permanence and the complexities of coexistence. The frequent use of site-specific and found materials act to document a site but often disrupt identification with place. Isles holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Curtin University and has undertaken a number of residencies, been part of a collaborative project with a Taiwanese curator and featured in a documentary about working cross culturally, has been selected for a sculpture scholarship and residency in Switzerland, and has exhibited in numerous group exhibitions in Melbourne, Brisbane and Western Australia.

Cass Lynch
Cass Lynch is a Koreng, Wudjari and Noongar woman and a descended from the families of Ravensthorpe in the Great Southern region. She is a writer and Research Fellow at Curtin University and has a PhD that explores Noongar stories that reference climate change. Cass is a member of the Wirlomin Noongar Language and Stories group who focus on the revitalisation of culture and language connected to south coast Noongar people. She has published short stories, essays and poems, and her multimedia storytelling works have been featured at Perth Festival, Fremantle Biennale and more. Her Noongar language haikus won the 2019 Patricia Hackett Prize and her short story ‘Split’, a creative impression of deep time Perth, can be found in the publication Flock: First Nations Stories Then and Now (University QLD Press, 2021).

Chloe Ogilvie
Chloe Ogilvie is a Yamatji Nanda woman from Western Australia, where she graduated from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts specialising in Lighting Design. Chloe works mostly as a designer but has crossed over into other areas such as production management and event coordination. Chloe has been a resident artist with Black Swan for three years and is currently co-curating the Maali Festival. Chloe Ogilvie is also a member of the arts collective The Farm where she has designed and production managed a range of shows including Throttle, Cockfight (Drover Award Winner), Ninth Wave, TIDE (Helpmann Award Winner) and Depthless.

Katt Osborne
Katt Osborne is an award-winning director and performance-maker, based in Boorloo (Perth). Her work explores stories and concepts that are messy, imperfect, heightened, surreal, playful and underpinned by a strong sense of musicality. Katt’s work as an independent artist has included works in a range of forms, including devised contemporary performance, new writing, cross-artform and hybrid performance, and directing plays, opera and musical theatre. In addition to her creative practice, Katt is also an established arts leader. Most recently, she led The Blue Room Theatre through the pandemic as Executive Director. In 2023, Katt was awarded a prestigious WA Business News 40under40 Award for entrepreneurship in the arts and cultural sector. 

Tyrown Waigana
Tyrown Waigana is a multidisciplinary artist and designer whose practice spans painting, illustration, sculpture, animation and graphic design. Of Wandandi Noongar, Yawuru and Ait Koedal heritage, Waigana was born in East Fremantle and raised in the surrounding suburbs of Western Australia. His work explores themes such as everyday myths, gaps in communication and the rhetoric surrounding Indigenous identity—often infused with wit and humour. Through his art, Waigana seeks to challenge perceptions while embracing opportunities that push creative boundaries, allowing him to continually evolve and grow as an artist. Waigana holds a Bachelor of Fine Art from Curtin University, runs Crawlin Crocodile, an art and design service, and has exhibited work with the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and Fremantle Art Centre.

Past members of PICA’s Artist Advisory Group include Kieron Broadhurst, Erin Coates, kelli mccluskey, Ilona McGuire, Renée Newman, Rachel Arianne Ogle, Joshua Pether and Andrew Varano.

Annual Reports

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