Patricia Piccinini: Nearly Beloved

Patricia Piccinini has represented Australia at the highest international level, and in 2016 was named the world’s most most popular artist.

This is the first major publication on Patricia Piccinini who has been celebrated ever since her 'Young Family' exhibition caused a sensation at the Venice Biennale. Piccinini creates an imaginative world peopled with families of charming and slightly unsettling beings. There are mutants who are half human and half beast, baby trucks and humanized scooters, sentient lumps of flesh and delicious bits of car:

'I really want to make work that is abhorrent but I want people to empathise. To be drawn in even though they may not want to’ says Piccinini. When confronted by the works, viewers are torn between empathy, revulsion and concern. In this book the author discusses the complex ideas associated with the work of Patricia Piccinini, making both the work and the ideas accessible.

The Art Newspaper described Patricia Piccinini as the world’s most popular contemporary artist of 2016 when half a million people visited her Rio exhibition. Every year since, there has been a major exhibition of Patricia Piccinini’s work at an Australian gallery.