This June, VOID_MELBOURNE presents “Balancing Acts | The World Standing on Its Head“, a solo exhibition by Sydney-based artist Lynne Roberts-Goodwin. Opening on Thursday 5 June, with an official launch event on Saturday 7 June, the exhibition reveals a powerful new body of sculptural and photographic works. These pieces draw on Roberts-Goodwin’s extensive four-decade practice, grounded in rigorous fieldwork, remote site engagement, and a sustained inquiry into environmental and atmospheric phenomena.
Lynne Roberts-Goodwin lives and works on the traditional lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. Her practice, which spans photo- and object-based works, has been shown widely both in Australia and internationally. She completed her fine arts studies at the National Art School, UNSW College of Fine Arts, and The University of Sydney (Hons.), before earning a Master of Fine Art at Manchester University, supported by the prestigious Art Gallery of New South Wales Moyra Dyring Travelling Art Scholarship.
Roberts-Goodwin’s artistic journey is deeply intertwined with her commitment to exploring “terrestrial atmospheric impacts and experience.” Over 40 years, she has undertaken projects in some of the world’s most remote and environmentally sensitive sites, from salt lakes in Turkey and Western Australia to deforestation zones in Mexico, endangered vulture habitats in India, and volcanic calderas in Italy and Hawai’i.
Rather than straightforward documentation, Roberts-Goodwin’s work offers a poetic and often haunting meditation on the earth’s shifting landscapes and the invisible forces shaping them. Her images convey a tension between the sublime and the terrifying, reflecting humanity’s insatiable demand for finite natural resources and the rapid transformations of terrain and ecology.
Balancing Acts delves into this complex dialogue between figure and ground, surface and void. The exhibition’s photographic and sculptural works reflect the instability and fragility of contemporary landscapes, while exploring spatial illusions and sensorimotor perception — a focus partly developed during her recent residency at Bundanon.
Roberts-Goodwin’s distinguished career includes early solo exhibitions such as Blindfold at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (1988) and a presentation at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (1994). She has exhibited internationally at venues including Cinque Mostre in Rome (2018) and the XII Florence Biennale (2019). Her commitment to site-responsive practice was recognised with the Mordant Family / Creative Australia Affiliated Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome (2017–2018). More recently, she has undertaken a major commission for the Convitto Palmieri Museum in Lecce, Italy, which remains ongoing.
The exhibition features a carefully curated selection of new photographic and sculptural works that highlight Lynne Roberts-Goodwin’s nuanced exploration of landscape and atmosphere. Among these is shape of things 037 (2024), an inkjet print on archival Hahnemühle Photo Rag® Metallic paper measuring 100 cm by 150 cm (framed), edition 5 + 2 AP, which exemplifies her meditative attention to materiality, scale, and atmosphere, inviting viewers into a contemplative space where landscape and abstraction converge. Complementing this are shape of things 002 (2024) and shape of things 003 (2024), similar in scale and medium, continuing to explore nuanced interactions of light, texture, and form, deepening the series’ engagement with the natural environment. The large-format ungrounded moment 003 (2024), a 100 cm by 237 cm inkjet print (framed), accentuates feelings of spatial suspension and temporal instability, key concerns throughout the exhibition.
Additionally, one or two ungrounded seconds 1, 2, and 3 (2023) are smaller inkjet prints on archival paper, each measuring 42.4 cm square (framed), functioning as intimate studies of fleeting moments of disorientation and environmental flux. Rounding out the presentation is standing the world on its head (2025), a sculptural series of handcrafted resin globes (125 mm by 90–100 mm diameter) painted with metallic iridescent pearl paint and encased in archival Buckram boxes with silver leaf stamping, edition 4. These iridescent forms poetically invert conventional perceptions of balance and stability, embodying the exhibition’s central theme of environmental precarity.
Balancing Acts | The World Standing on Its Head challenges audiences to reconsider their relationship with the earth’s unstable environments. Lynne Roberts-Goodwin’s work acts as both a scientific inquiry and poetic intervention — urging us to see the world anew, through a lens of environmental urgency and aesthetic contemplation.
Exhibition Details
Venue: VOID_MELBOURNE
Address: 190 Bourke Street, 2nd Floor, Melbourne VIC 3000
Dates: 5 – 28 June 2025
Hours: Thursday – Saturday, 12 – 5 pm or by appointment
