Sullivan+Strumpf is excited to present Melbourne-based painter Sis Cowie’s inaugural solo exhibition with the gallery, Garden of earthly delights. Opening 19 November 2026 in Gadigal/Sydney, Cowie’s new body of work unfolds as a strange yet seductive Garden of Eden: a place of genesis, where familiar stories are reimagined through a contemporary, psychologically charged lens.

Drawing on the biblical narrative of Eden alongside pagan motifs, folklore, Renaissance and Baroque painting, and personal, imagined worlds, Sis Cowie constructs a realm that feels both ancient and entirely her own. Here, naïve and often bewildered female figures move through an uncharted landscape, encountering the unfamiliar and the unexpected.

Each painting operates as its own anecdote within Cowie’s broader constructed world. A figure discovers a mysterious portal in Puddle, suggesting a passage into an unknown realm, perhaps the underworld or purgatory; in Sprout, a newly born figure looks upwards into a world of spring growth and possibility.

Elsewhere, encounters become more complicated. In Nymphs, the idyllic world of nymphs is interrupted by the viewer’s surveilling gaze. One figure looks directly outward at the viewer, suddenly aware of her nakedness and the intrusion of being watched. The painting transforms a traditionally idyllic pastoral scene into a meditation on shame and vulnerability.

The works also draw on the theatricality and narrative of Renaissance and Baroque painting. Cowie’s figures are not simply subjects to be painted; they have a role within a larger story. Their gestures and relationships communicate fragments of a world that the viewer is invited to decipher.

Across the series, nature is a fabricated, theatrical stage upon which Cowie’s stories can unfurl. Ivy, flowers, trees, fruit, water and insects suggest a world that exists beyond human comprehension, hinting at hidden realms and older forms of knowledge.

Cowie alludes to a secret, hidden world which is just out of our cognitive reach. Yet this garden is not purely idyllic. It is a place where beauty can conceal danger and innocence can beget shame. Every encounter carries the possibility of transformation, or destruction. Cowie’s paintings ultimately imagine Eden not as a lost paradise, but as an unfamiliar world worthy of renewed discovery.

Sis Cowie takes inspiration from traditional allegories, reinterpreting both Western religious scripture and secular folklore within contemporary contexts. Familiar visual imagery, such as the apple, is woven into temporal stories of lust, jealousy, and betrayal.

By utilising the nuances of human form and expression to enhance these narratives, Cowie captures an entire story within a single moment. Although her technique demonstrates a high level of realism, her effervescent female figures are idealised expressions of the female form and its emotions.

In 2020, Cowie graduated from the University of Melbourne with an Honours degree in History. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Richard Lester Prize for Portraiture (2021), the Brett Whiteley Travelling Scholarship (2023), the Lennox Award (2023), and the William Fletcher Foundation Development Grant (2023).

Cowie’s work is held in both private and permanent collections. The artist has exhibited widely throughout Australia and internationally.

This exhibition runs concurrently with the solo exhibition, Lynda Draper, Bloom, presented in the Gallery’s downstairs exhibition space.