At PICA we recognise that we are situated within the unceded lands of the Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation. We pay our respects and offer our gratitude to Elders past and present. We acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the importance of their care and continued connection to culture, community and Country.

Always was, always will be.

Galleries are open 12–5pm. Our exhibitions are always free.

Elsa Mona (WA), Chloe Catto (TAS)

Matter Out of Place

Matter Out of Place

Elsa Mona and Chloe Catto each interrogate systems of value through materially rich, conceptually layered practices. Mona’s work foregrounds the body as a site of vulnerability and transformation, using performance and abject sculptural forms to reflect on the relationship between human and non-human existence and the inevitability of decay. In contrast, Catto’s practice turns to industrial objects and discarded materials, questioning how systems of power shape our relationship to matter, progress and worth. Where Mona invites a tender reckoning with the abject and the visceral, Catto offers an unpacking of material agency and entropy.  

Matter Out of Place presents new, experimental work from both Mona and Catto, produced during their Hatched Studio Residencies at PICA. Curated by Mia Palmer-Verevis, Hatched Curatorial Associate 2025-26. 

Opening Night: Thursday 28 August, 6–8pm
Artist Talks: Saturday 30 August, 1–2pm
Exhibition Open: Friday 29 August and Saturday 30 August 10am-4pm

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Elsa Mona is a visual and performance artist based in Boorloo with a technical background in contemporary dance, which she uses to demonstrate a relationship between her body and the perceivable grotesque sculptures she builds. Her work defies idealistic perceptions of beauty and investigates the various states of a body—both human and non-human—through life to death. At first glance, her sculptures can seem ugly, injured and monstrous, but when we sit tenderly with them, we begin to become comfortable with the concept of decay and its inevitability.  

Chloe Catto is an emerging artist based in nipaluna/Hobart. Her multidisciplinary practice examines how objects and materials—both physical and ideological—form and interconnect within systems of value that define our relationship to material culture and progress. Working with industrial artifacts, she explores themes of precarity and entropy to expose the autonomy of ‘debased’ matter within networks of reciprocal modification.   

Supporters

Hatched is made possible by the generosity of PICA’s Art 1000 Donors, Exhibition Partner the Minderoo Foundation, Venue Partner ISPT, Dr Harold Schenberg Arts Awards Partner University of Western Australia, Community Engagement Partner City of Perth, and Grace Fine Art. Supported by North Metropolitan TAFE.