Kym Maxwell

Strange Powers, Seventh Gallery, Narrm, April 29th - June13th, 2026
Kym Maxwell, Nicholas Burridge, Leon Rice-Whetton

Curated by Lucie Loy

The second chapter of Matter & Spirit gathers three practices around the network (electrical, mycorrhizal, logistical) as material condition and active force. Where the opening exhibition traced the life cycle of a single resource, this exhibition moves outward. Into contested river systems, industrial dead zones, and the underground life of soil. All three artists are attentive to what Jane Bennett calls thing-power - the capacity of nonhuman matter to impede, exceed, or redirect human intention. But none of the works exist outside of capital either. A river shaped by five thousand years of mining and the British company that industrialised it; a tree felled to service power lines; a portside landscape restructured around the movement of freight. They are also grounded, then, in the political question Joshua Simon poses: who extracts, who profits, and what gets left behind. The works in this exhibition follow matter as it organises itself; across, beneath, and often in spite of the systems imposed on it.

Kym Maxwell arrives at similar terrain from a different excavation. Following the involuntary removal of an Australian Blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon) to make way for power lines in her garden, Kym turned the act of uprooting into a durational encounter with the mycorrhizal networks below ground. Where the logic of infrastructure saw only an obstacle to be removed, Kym found a dense, interconnected world beneath. A root system more complex and beautiful than anticipated, one that continued to generate new growth from each severed point. The resulting sculptures and drawing carry the weight of this specific loss but also register forces beyond grief. A tree conducts an electrical current through the human body when touched. Soil decomposes and regenerates. Oil transforms under pressure, whether geological or industrial. This last material pulls the work outward. A large drawing traces the ecology and science of the oil industry, moving through one manmade crisis after another, from the exploitation of natural resources to what Kym describes as petro-masculinity. Through what she calls a fem-based petroscape, Kym educates herself on her own terms, unearthing a history of extraction that mirrors the one she began with in her own garden. The drawing is accompanied by a sculptural assemblage. A male form on a plaster table, surrounded by buckets of engine oil, food fat, water, and cooking oils. Materials of modernity and monocultural collapse, sitting together as paradox. Like Nic, Kym is working with matter that refuses to be passive.

Together, these three artists form a loose but resonant argument. They are dealing with networks that organise matter and life in ways that exceed, predate, or operate indifferently to the human interests that claim to govern them. All three are embedded in the political economy of extraction, and are informed by a vital materialist instinct - that matter is not merely acted upon but acts also.

List of Works

Drawings

Kym Maxwell, Oil’s Metamorphosis: A Tale of Petro-Masculinity from a Fem-Petroscape Perspective, 2026. Medium: Cold-pressed watercolour paper 300gsm, watercolour, charcoal, graphite, soft pastel. Size: 230cms x 140cms.

Sculptures

Kym Maxwell, Acacia Melanoxylon root: removal — a systemic rerouting of understanding (and misunderstanding) of place (magpie, witchetty grub, and clay). Electric soil, cell, soul, 2026. Medium: Acacia melanoxylon root, regrowth, soil, mild steel, styrofoam, cardboard, coir husk, PVA, cellulose-based powdered glue, wire, Raku and earthenware clay, 3 x dollies, enamel paint. Size: 4m x 115cms x 2.1m (Dimensions Variable)

Drawing

Kym Maxwell, Gardening Is not a hobby it is an activity where you physically rehearse what happens after death, 2026. Medium: Cold-pressed watercolour paper 300gsm, watercolour, acrylic paint, gouache, charcoal, graphite, soft pastel. Size: 215cms x 152cms.

Sculpture

Kym Maxwell, Oil and the RV man (Modern Monoculture), 2026. Medium: Coir husk, styrofoam, Auxins, PVA, cellulose-based powdered glue, wire, cardboard, protein powder, 16mm plastic tubing, coloured plastic buckets, 20 litres engine slump, 20 litres discarded cooking oil, 183 cm ‘LIFETIME’ foldable table. Size: 185cms x 75cms x 110cms (Dimensions Variable)

Works are installed as part of the group show Strange Powers, Matter and Spirit at Seventh Gallery, April 29th to June 13th