artist overview
Gene A’Hern (b. 1993) is an Australian artist based in Katoomba, New South Wales, whose practice is grounded in drawing and marked by a rich engagement with materiality and process. Working across painting, collage, and works on paper, A’Hern blends gestural mark-making with elements of abstraction and figuration. His emotionally charged surfaces—layered with raw pigment, oils, spray paint, pastels, and charcoal—draw on personal memory, meditative practices, and the natural world. Recognisable motifs such as mountains, sky, and bushland emerge from swirling colour fields, evoking Hans Hofmann’s “push and pull” technique.
A’Hern’s latest solo exhibition, the pilot and the passenger, marks his Melbourne debut at 1301 SW, following shows in Copenhagen, Los Angeles, and Sydney. Other solo presentations include The Storm that Grew Us (2024, Cassandra Bird, Sydney), A Curtain Through the Trees (2023, Copenhagen), and Day Pours Speech, Night Reveals Knowledge (2022, Simchowitz, Los Angeles). His process-led approach is deeply intuitive and autobiographical, evolving from sketchbook symbolism into expansive, lyrical compositions that capture shifting internal states and landscapes with striking immediacy.
