If it weren't for Heide school artist Joy Hester, Patricia Piccinini might never have become an artist at all.
She was in her third year of an economics degree at ANU when she took a class that included Hester's work.
"I was about 21, and I really connected with her because of the intimacy of her work," says Piccinini. "What she did that was quite rare – and it's still rare – was to depict what it's like to love, not just to be the love object. It's actually quite confronting, it's not this happy thing. It's quite dark."
Hester's work inspired Piccinini to give up the economics degree and pursue a different path, to become an artist. So when TarraWarra Museum of Art director Victoria Lynn approached Piccinini about doing a joint show with a modern artist, she knew just the one.
They were tossing around ideas for the theme of the new exhibition – pairing, duality, doubles, hybrids – and they both came to the realisation that the strongest theme of both artists is love.
"Patricia is asking us to have an emotional relationship with her characters," says Lynn.
There are more than 50 works in the exhibition, including a brand-new work by Piccinini created specifically for this exhibition. The centrepiece is a sculpture of an elderly half-human, half-bonobo couple. They are naked and embracing, and the tenderness on their faces is unmistakable.
Piccinini says her early works were about alienation, not love, but she's finally at a point in her career where she can do what Joy did. "For me, 30 years later I've come to a place where I can make a work about love between adults," she says.
"I couldn't do that if I wasn't being sincere. If I was doing this as a joke, it wouldn't work. Which is hard for someone like me, because as soon as you're sincere, you're exposed... People can dismiss you. I'm trying to do something that's really heartfelt."