BARK SALON | IN CONVERSATION: MICHAEL GENTLE & LISA SLADE
Celebrating Bark Salon, the largest-ever staging of the NGV’s dynamic and expansive holdings of bark paintings, NGV curator Michael Gentle speaks with Professor Lisa Slade, Hugh Ramsay Chair of Australian Art History at The University of Melbourne, to explore the breadth of bark painting as a genre, tracing genealogical shifts in form, aesthetic, narrative and politic.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
LISA SLADE
Professor Lisa Slade is the Hugh Ramsay Chair of Australian Art History in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. As both a curator and art historian, Lisa has played an active role and has a critical interest in how exhibition making and collection development makes Australia’s art histories. Between 2015 and 2024 she was Assistant Director, Artistic Programs at the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) where Lisa led the gallery’s creative output including exhibitions, collection displays, public and educational programs. Together with the AGSA team, she implemented the curatorial signature at AGSA that brings discrete and pervading art histories into dialogue with contemporary art and ideas, including the vital leadership of First Nations’ voices.
MICHAEL GENTLE
Michael Gentle is Curator of Australian and First Nations Art at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). He is a Noongar man with Ancestral connections to Minang Country and English convicts. His research and curation explore national identities, constructions of the environment and the ‘Indigenization’ of the nation state. He has contributed to publications such as Artlink and MEMO Review, teasing out topics relating to eco-critical and queer art histories. Michael was awarded the 2025 Australia-at-Large Rhodes Scholarship for Oxford University, where he will continue his research in Australian and First Nations art. Presently, he is co-curating a Margaret Preston retrospective, scheduled to open late 2026.
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