Sullivan+Strumpf is excited to present Unseen cosmic clock II, a new iteration of works from Naarm/Melbourne-based artist Seth Birchall, extending on themes explored in his recent major solo for SECCA: South-East Centre for Contemporary Art.

In Unseen cosmic clock, 6 June – 22 August 2026, Birchall presented a new series of paintings and prints, in which he situated personal experience within broader questions of climate disaster and responsibility.

In Unseen cosmic clock II he delves further into the complex themes at the heart of his practice, continuing his exploration of the environmental landscape, inheritance, and the tension between loss and possibility, in new large-scale paintings, including a major diptych, presented alongside works from the original exhibition.

In this new series, recurring imagery – of marred olive trees, property markers and enclosed walls, moonlit skies, garden paths, and natural phenomena such as lightning, feature strongly. These elements forming a visual language of fragility and endurance, with trees appearing throughout the works as silent witnesses to environmental degradation and the changing landscapes around them.

At the center of the exhibition is an intergenerational conversation between Birchall and his young daughter. The works reflect on what he feels he cannot promise her – land, the continuity of gardens, or a sense of environmental permanence – while remaining committed to a life shaped by curiosity, creativity and a pursuit that is generative rather than extractive.

This tension between anxiety for the future and an enduring sense of wonder runs throughout the paintings, connecting the vulnerability of the natural world with the possibilities of imagination and painting.

Birchall’s landscapes draw on a longstanding engagement with the history of painting and the ways artists have used landscape to understand their relationship with the world, while responding to the environmental realities of the present. Ideas of inheritance and reciprocity are central to the work, with paintings conceived as objects that can carry memory and connection across generations.

Seth Birchall is of dual Australian and American nationalities. He was born in New Jersey, USA, but has spent much of his life in Australia, since arriving with his family at the age of eight.

In 2024 his work was included in the 2024 Adelaide Biennial, Inner sanctum, curated by José da Silva at the Art Gallery of South Australia. In the same year, he was awarded a residency at Bundanon and received the Dobell Foundation Artist in Residence Award.