Trailblazing Women

A non-partisan portrait collection

Fourteen women.
Fourteen firsts.

A visual archive of women who entered spaces where women had never been before.

The collection is non-partisan. What unites these women is not party, ideology or chronology, but the institutional threshold each one crossed — and the presence required to occupy that space under public scrutiny.

Trailblazing Women: 14 portraits from modern Australian politics

The exhibition

Not a political
timeline.
A human one.

These portraits span the political spectrum. What unites them is not what these women believed, but the institutional threshold each one crossed.

The collection strips away the transient visual language of political campaigns and focuses instead on presence — the resilience, stoicism and determination required to enter previously male-dominated spaces, occupy them and endure intense public scrutiny.

Hung together, the works form a spectrum of modern history. Each portrait is monochromatic, each uses a single professional pigment, and each responds differently to the same deliberately irregular physical foundation.

14Portraits
14Institutional milestones
1Shared thread: the first
1Pigment per portrait
4Tonal structure
∞Ways pigment can settle

The women · in hanging order

01 · The Verdant Earth Triad

Undersea, earth, forest.

Three greens that refuse to stay as one colour. They split, settle and hold — as these women held the chamber, the cabinet table, and the long work of remaining.

Portrait of Joan Child, painted in Undersea Green
Undersea Green

Joan Child

First Female Speaker of the House of Representatives

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Portrait of Bronwyn Bishop, painted in Rare Green Earth
Rare Green Earth

Bronwyn Bishop

Longest-Serving Female Member of the Australian Parliament

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Portrait of Dame Margaret Guilfoyle, painted in Forest Blue
Forest Blue

Dame Margaret Guilfoyle

First Female Cabinet Minister with a Major Portfolio

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Portrait of Julia Gillard, painted in Bloodstone Genuine

Anchor

Julia Gillard

Bloodstone Genuine

First Female Prime Minister. Crushed heliotrope: a mineral of bedrock weight, pooling into near-black charcoal in the valleys of the tissue, blooming as weathered stone at the edges.

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02 · The Deep Oceanic Triad

Apatite, sodalite, steel-grey.

Dense mineral blues and a fused grey. Structural weight, granulating tides, and a pigment that refuses to split — like a military identity that will not be smoothed over.

Portrait of Natasha Stott Despoja, painted in Blue Apatite Genuine
Blue Apatite Genuine

Natasha Stott Despoja

First woman to lead an established federal parliamentary party into a federal election

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Portrait of Julie Bishop, painted in Sodalite Genuine
Sodalite Genuine

Julie Bishop

First Female Foreign Minister

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Portrait of Jacqui Lambie, painted in Jane's Grey
Jane’s Grey

Jacqui Lambie

First Female ADF Veteran Elected to Federal Parliament

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03 · The Iron Oxide Triad

Heat, endurance, stone.

Oxides that burn, harden and grip. Iron that has been exposed to pressure — a material metaphor for careers defined by friction, stamina and immovable service.

Portrait of Pauline Hanson, painted in Transparent Red Oxide
Transparent Red Oxide

Pauline Hanson

First Woman to Co-Found and Lead Her Own Political Party into Parliament

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Portrait of Nova Peris, painted in Transparent Brown Oxide
Transparent Brown Oxide

Nova Peris

First Indigenous Woman Elected to Federal Parliament

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Portrait of Marise Payne, painted in Piemontite Genuine
Piemontite Genuine

Marise Payne

Longest-Serving Female Senator · First Female Minister for Defence

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Portrait of Quentin Bryce, painted in Shadow Violet

Anchor

Quentin Bryce

Shadow Violet

First Female Governor-General. A pigment with a split personality: smoky violet in the shadows of the hat and gaze; warm orange-brown bleeding into the raised paper like weathered light.

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The Firsts

Fourteen institutional milestones. The second way through the collection.

The Material

Tissue, ground, pigment, granulation, wax. How the surface was made to misbehave.

The Stories

The individual journeys: entry, endurance, and the rooms they were first to occupy.

Learn

Questions for looking — at the paint, and at the history it holds.

The artist

Paquita Fadden

The vision

A Gold Coast watercolourist. This collection honours the battles her generation fought — and the women who broke the mould in the most male-dominated arena of public life.