Sacred Ritual - Group Exhibition
Exhibition Dates: November 27 - December 6
Opening Night: Friday November 27 6pm
Online Sales Launch: Thursday November 26 8pm
Exhibiting Artists: Larissa Blake, Daniela Cristallo, Ann Gordon and Madeline Young.
Curated by Larissa Blake, Sacred Ritual is a group exhibition of original Australian art at The Corner Store Gallery in Orange, NSW. It brings together four artists connected by a love of colour, nature and making.
Inspired by a packet of incense, the title reflects an artist’s practice: the contemplative state of creating, and the dedication it takes to master a craft.
The four artists, two city based and two country based, first came together at the Sydney Affordable Art Fair, where Larissa blurted out “we should do a show together.” This is that show.
Larissa Blake
Larissa Blake is a contemporary visual artist based in Orange, NSW, known for her bold use of colour, playful compositions and experimental approach to abstract expressionism. Working primarily in mixed media, she creates vibrant, joyful paintings that reinterpret traditional artistic genres in fresh, contemporary ways.
Working from her light-filled studio, an industrial shed nestled within lush garden surrounds on the outskirts of Orange, Larissa embraces both experimentation and intuition. Her paintings celebrate colour as a powerful language, inviting viewers to see the world through a more vivid and expressive lens.
“The view from my studio, looking north over the landscape towards Orange, is a never-ending source of inspiration for me,” she says. “I’ve painted that landscape in every season and weather condition. It has become both an anchor point and a launch pad, a place of reflection and growth. This year’s mild winter, with plenty of rain, has given the paddocks an unusually emerald hue.”
Alongside her paintings, Larissa presents a series of sculptures that evolved from a desire to create something meaningful from little inherited treasures: her aunt’s beads, crystals from gifted bracelets, collected trinkets and Zenith’s violet vase, evocative of days gone by. By transmuting costume jewellery into another form, she gives each piece another life before it eventually returns to the earth.
Daniela Cristallo
Daniela Cristallo is a Sydney-based abstract artist known for richly textured paintings that capture the raw beauty of the Australian landscape. Working primarily with acrylic and oil stick on canvas and board, she also has a long-standing passion for mixed-media drawing on paper.
Beginning with plein air studies, Daniela transforms her time in the landscape into abstract compositions built from layered textures, expressive marks and an intuitive colour palette. “I don’t just want to paint a pretty landscape,” she says, “but to capture its essence in the most authentic way I can.”
Her work for Sacred Ritual returns again and again to the sea. It explores the deep ties between women, water and the slow unfolding of time: morning swims, sunshine on bare skin, the gentle lap of the tide, and the quiet strength found in being together. Here, a shared ritual of return becomes a kind of devotion.
Daniela’s work has been exhibited across Australia, featured in major art prizes, and is held in private collections nationally and internationally.
Ann Gordon
Ann Gordon is an Australian landscape painter whose work for Sacred Ritual begins with the bush itself. When travelling into nature, she collects twigs and fibres from the landscape and crafts them into handmade brushes. The contemplative act of making these tools has become her ritual, shifting her painting practice from depicting to enacting.
This body of work, including the handcrafted brushes, grew from a trip earlier this year to the Murray River on the border of NSW and Victoria. Ann spent days by the river, recording in her journal and collecting materials. Back in the studio, she expanded these sketches into larger paintings using tools made from that same place. The result is spontaneous, gestural and energetic marks that are intimately connected to the landscape. Each work, including Wetland Bower, expresses what it felt like to be immersed there, translating the presence of the bush rather than simply illustrating it.
Ann has been exhibiting since 2004 and has been a finalist and award winner in numerous Australian art prizes. Recent highlights include the 2026 Omnia Art Prize, Fleurieu Art Prize and Burwood Art Prize, and the Curators Choice Exhibition. Earlier prizes include the Gosford Art Prize, Fishers Ghost Award, Southern Buoy Landscape Prize, Northern Beaches Art Prize, The Greenway Art Prize, Waverley Art Prize, Waverley Landscape Prize and The Little Things Art Prize. She holds a Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Visual Communications from the University of Technology.
Madeline Young
Madeline Young is an Australian abstract artist based in Orange, NSW, on Wiradjuri Country. Her intuitive paintings respond to emotion, memory and the shifting rhythms of the Australian landscape, built up in layered surfaces of texture, pattern and gesture. Colour is guided by how she is feeling at the time of painting, so each palette becomes a record of a particular season, experience or state of mind.
“Every art practice is built on small sacred rituals. One of mine is pulling on my painting pants each morning. They’re usually old jeans, torn in awkward places and covered in paint I never meant to spill, but putting them on is what draws me into the studio. People often tell me the jeans are artworks in their own right, and that I should sell them. That got me thinking, and I’ve since begun recycling them into my work. Those accidental marks, made without any intention at all, are often the most beautiful.”
Madeline holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Newcastle (2009) and has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across Australia. Since 2014 she has been the curator and director of The Corner Store Gallery, an independent space dedicated to supporting emerging and established Australian artists.