Panel Talk: BEING BORN ROMANTIC – An evening in conversation with Aretha Brown
Description
Getting to know the artist behind BORN ROMANTIC. Through an intimate conversation shaped by audience questions, Aretha Brown discusses the experience of translating romantic energy, relationships, identity and personal experience into her artistic practice.
Audience members will be invited to submit questions anonymously through a question box, with selected questions helping to guide the conversation.
All panel talk tickets include entry to the BORN ROMANTIC exhibition.
Speakers
Aretha Brown
Aretha Brown is a Gumbaynggirr artist, muralist and screenwriter whose multidisciplinary practice centres Blak truth-telling, cultural resilience and intergenerational knowledge transfer. Through painting, public art, installation and storytelling, Brown creates works that challenge colonial narratives while celebrating First Nations survival, joy and futurity. As founder of KISS MY ART Collective, Brown has led the creation of more than 70 public murals across seven countries, transforming walls into sites of education and cultural exchange. In 2025, Brown became one of the youngest artists selected for the National Indigenous Art Triennial, opening After the Rain at the National Gallery of Australia with her monumental 40-metre timeline mural, The Birth of a Nation: The True History of Australia.
BORN ROMANTIC
'The only thing harder than being born Aboriginal, gay, and a woman… is being born a romantic.’
- Aretha Brown
In the age of the internet, I have chosen a post-cringe perspective on the meaning of love, dating and romance; leaning into the vulnerable, awkward and the uncomfortable.
Rejecting the assumption that Aboriginal art must be purely educational and political, this show delivers a dissection of my heart, a deeply personal insight into the experience of being a young, queer, Blak girl. It’s sexy, stupid, tender, awkward, and a little bit perverted.
This show is my love letter to being embarrassingly human.
Born Romantic is supported by Abbotsford Convent.
Tickets for good, not greed Humanitix dedicates 100% of profits from booking fees to charity