Sullivan+Strumpf is thrilled to announce an exhibition of new works from acclaimed Brisbane artist Natalya Hughes, opening Thursday 23 April to Saturday 17 May 2026 at their Gadigal/Sydney gallery.

The lean takes inspiration from the illustrations of French artist and designer George Barbier (1992 – 1932), a leading figure in the Art Deco movement, renowned for his elegant illustrations for journals including Gazette du Bon Ton, Vogue, La vie Parisienne and Harper's bazaar; his costumes for clients including the Folies Bergère and the Casino de Paris; and jewellery for Maison Cartier.

In this new series Hughes reworks Barbier’s refined, elegant depictions of early 20th Century women, transforming their poised silhouettes into something more physical and unruly. Working at an immersive scale, she fills her large canvases with leaning, twisting forms that feel less like illustrations and more like physical presences.

These new works connect with a broader cultural shift toward more diverse, honest and realistic representations of women – a conversation increasingly visible across fashion, publishing and media.

Rather than presenting femininity as polished or perfected, Hughes embraces fluctuation, softness, excess and imperfection, celebrating the female form through all its stages and transformations. Up close, her surfaces are rich and tactile; from a distance, bodies seem to assemble and unravel. Humour and playfulness are present, even as the exaggeration speaks to the very real experience and sensations of inhabiting a changing body.

The lean marks a vibrant new chapter in Hughes’ practice: a series of paintings that are as sensuous and stylish as they are thoughtful, inviting audiences to see elegance not as control, but as movement, change and possibility. In this appropriation-based series she blends homage and critique, reclaiming a historically idealised vision of femininity and reshaping it into something contemporary, expressive and embodied.