THE ARTIST

Carrie Retallack is an Australian artist whose practice has grown from more than two decades in graphic design and creative direction. After years spent helping shape other people’s ideas, art became the place where she could follow her own curiosity and perspective, creating work led by instinct, experience and the things she finds herself drawn to notice.

Where it began

A lifelong creative, Carrie began as a painter and drawer before pursuing a career in graphic design and creative direction, working internationally and across Australia. More than twenty years in design sharpened her eye for composition, colour and visual storytelling, while deepening her interest in photography, interiors and the way images shape experience.

After stepping away from the pace of design to start a family, Carrie returned to art with a renewed sense of clarity. What emerged drew on everything she had learned through design, but gave her something different: the freedom to begin with curiosity rather than a brief, and to leave room for ambiguity, emotion and personal interpretation.

Driven to Create

Carrie’s creative life has always been guided less by a fixed destination than by a desire to keep following what feels meaningful. Art gave her a way to work without the constraints of a brief: to begin with curiosity, allow ideas to evolve and trust her own perspective.

Now based in Perth with her two daughters, she is building a practice around that freedom. The philosophy echoes advice her father gave her early in life: to choose the path she enjoyed rather than fixating on the outcome, and to allow that path to change over time. It is something she now hopes to model for her own daughters – that there is strength in choosing a life that feels genuinely your own.

Learn more about The Art

Exhibitions

Affordable Art Fair Melbourne, 2026
27 - 30 August
Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne
Presented by Artist Lane

Breath, 2026
13 August - 13 September
Palette, North Fremantle
Group exhibition

A Bloom for June, 2026
21 May - 14 June
Palette, North Fremantle
Group exhibition

Affordable Art Fair Melbourne, 2024
29 August - 1 September
Royal Exhibition Building, Carlton
Presented by Vernissage Art Gallery

Omnia Art Prize, 2024
2 x finalists
24 - 26 May, Smith Hall, St Kevin’s College

Mimesis solo exhibition, 2023
7 - 22 December
Brunswick Street Gallery, Fitzroy