Lecture 6: Representational Painting and ‘The flesh of the world’ by Jude Rae

If you missed Lecture 6: Representational Painting and ‘The flesh of the world’ by Jude Rae, in the Drill Hall Gallery’s 2026/27 Lecture Series: Artworks of significance: ideas, history, aesthetics, and cultural context, you can watch the recorded version below or on our Youtube channel. 

Lecture 6: Representational Painting and ‘The flesh of the world’
Jude Rae

Jude Rae has painted within the representational tradition for four decades, often at odds with the prevailing discourse of contemporary art. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s account of perception as an intertwining of the seen and the sensing body, Jude will discuss the ideas and artworks that have shaped her practice: how she has tried, and sometimes failed, to hold representation and material sensitivity together in the act of painting.

Jude Rae is a Sydney based artist known for her still life paintings, portraits and architectural interiors. Over the last forty years Jude has held over 60 solo exhibitions of her work in Australia, New Zealand Germany and the USA, and been awarded residencies in France, Italy and New Zealand.

In 2005 and 2008 Jude won the Portia Geach Memorial Award for Portraiture and was Highly Commended in the Archibald Prize in 2019, 2021 and 2022 and in 2025 she was awarded the Wynne Prize for landscape.

Her other awards include the prestigious Bulgari Award presented in partnership with the Art Gallery of NSW and significant portrait commissions including Parliament House and the High Court of Australia.

In 2017 a survey of her work was held at the Australian National University Drill Hall Gallery. Her work is held in major public and private collections in Australia and New Zealand.

Find out more about our 2026/27 Lecture Series: Artworks of significance: ideas, history, aesthetics, and cultural context here.

Image: Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Pot of Flowers and Fruit, c. 1888-90, oil on canvas, 46 cm x 56.25 cm (canvas), Courtauld Gallery, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)