Artist profile
Hayley
Megan French
Dr Hayley Megan French traces the quiet geometries of suburbia and home; mapping memory, belonging and the deep textures of place through paint, photography and writing.
Dr Hayley Megan French's practice is an ongoing act of attentive home-making - a layered, poetic engagement with place that intertwines personal geography, suburban histories, and broader social narratives. Her work offers a rich, methodical observation of the everyday, translated into painting, photography, writing and curatorial inquiry. Her growing archive of works continues to challenge assumptions about how we live in suburbia and how art can help us situate ourselves within it.
Across her career, French has achieved significant recognition as both a practitioner and researcher. Her PhD on the influence of Aboriginal painting on Australian contemporary painting earned the prestigious CHASS Student Prize; she has held notable solo exhibitions such as 'Within Walking Distance' (The Condensery, 2022), 'The Pipeline: A Suburban Painting Project' (Galerie pompom, 2020) and 'Horizons Present and Unseen (Broken Hills Regional Art Gallery, 2017); and exhibited in group shows including 'Looking at Painting' (Casula Powerhouse, 2021) and the Nationally touring 'Legacy: Reflections on Mabo' (2019). Alongside her painting practice, French has contributed critical writing to respected publications and curated exhibitions across Sydney and regional NSW both in her role with Parramatta Artists Studios and as an independent curator.
French's residency at Bundanon in 2023 further deepened her exploration of place, extending her inquiry into the relationships between home and landscape. Her growing archive of works is deeply reflective, research-informed, and consistently committed to reimagining how we understand home and locality in Australia.
Career Highlights
- Solo exhibition: Within Walking Distance, The Condensery, Somerset Regional Gallery, September 2022,
- PhD: See Where it Drifts; The Influence of Aboriginal Art on an Australian Ontology of Painting, 2015, Sydney College of the Arts, awarded the CHASS Australia (Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences) Student Prize
- National Touring Exhibition: Legacy: Reflections on Mabo, co-curated by Gail Mabo, Dr Jonathan McBurnie and Kellie Williams, 2019-2023
Artist Interview
What medium do you work with, and why have you chosen them?
I work primarily in painting, moving between abstraction and representation. I make paintings because I love the way paintings make me feel – both experiencing them and in making them. I love the capacity of painting to create an intimacy and stillness that can communicate ideas, hold complexities, and inspire reflection. Painting is a conceptual medium which allows me to move between different styles and methodologies in order to best explore my ideas.
How does your artwork get from initial concept to exhibition stage?
My practice is iterative; the same processes of walking, photographing, drawing and painting are repeated and result in the development of new bodies of work. This allows me to consider ideas of home, suburbia, landscape and belonging through different methods of abstraction, figuration and writing.
Can you tell us a little more about your creative working environment/studio?
I work from my home in Western Sydney on Dharug country. In my home studio I am surrounded by books, those I have read and many I have not; and artworks I have collected. This space, and my surrounding neighbourhood, are the biggest sources of inspiration for my practice.
