5 Artists Shaping Contemporary Abstract Art in Australia

Abstract Edit

July 1, 2024

Abstract art is art that does not attempt to represent an accurate depiction of visual reality but instead uses shapes, colours, forms, and gestural marks to achieve its effect. – Tate, 2025

Abstraction is both a way of thinking and a way of seeing. It shifts our focus from literal representation to the essence of experience. Through abstraction, we move beyond the tangible world and into a space where mood, form, and sensation take precedence. In Australia, abstract art is at a dynamic moment—driven by artists who push the boundaries of colour, texture, and form, offering fresh ways of seeing and experiencing the world around us.

This blog was inspired by a recent exhibition at Jahm House Museum, titled - Minimal: Less is More, Nothing is Something including work by Caroline Collom. At Otomys, we represent a group of artists who together reflect the rich scope of abstraction in Australia today.
01. Caroline Collom

Caroline Collom (b. United Kingdom) is an abstract artist whose practice distils and reimagines visual forms, exploring the multi-dimensional possibilities of painting. Drawing inspiration from her surroundings, she isolates elements from their original context and positions them within spaces that invite a contemplative dialogue of form. Caroline is a finalist in the Contemporary Category of the 2025 Fisher’s Ghost Art Award with her painting Moving On.

Caroline Collom, Naples to Rome, Oil on Linen, Natural Oak Frame, 56 x 66cm

View Available Work by Caroline Collom
02. Joel Sorensen

Joel Sorensen (b. Australia) is a sculptor whose practice is rooted in instinctual and primal engagement with materials, exploring the boundaries between the figurative, metamorphic, and abstract.

Living and working on Jaara Country in Central Victoria, Sorensen carves, models, and casts using reclaimed timber, clay, bronze, cement, and plaster — each medium informing the others in a tactile dialogue with the natural world.

Joel Sorensen, Lines of Flight, Cement & Pigment, 70 x 57 x 25cm

View Available work by joel sorensen
03. Inga Dalrymple

Inga Dalrymple’s (b. Australia) paintings and drawings transcribe an unfolding dialogue with memory in their materiality and method.

To Dalrymple, painting becomes a parallel for remembering, its transparencies and opacities, harmonies and discordances mirroring the ebb and flow of memory. Her compositions, layered with traces of accumulations and revisions, echo the mind’s perceptual shifts.

Inga Dalrymple, Blue Fire, Acrylic on Board, 61 x 46cm

view available work by inga dalrymple
04. Kathryn Dolby

Kathryn Dolby (b. Australia) creates psycho-geographic paintings of the landscapes around her. Through gesture and abstraction, her landscapes explore the connections between the subconscious, the everyday and the sublime.

Kathryn Dolby, Elemental Tango, Acrylic on Birch, 60 x 80cm

View Available Work by Kathryn Dolby
05. Dapeng Liu

Dapeng Liu (b. Beijing) is a contemporary landscape painter, whose work sits at the intersections of his cross-cultural identity. Evocative and thought provoking, Dapeng Liu’s practice is defined by his striking utilisation of colour, composition and form.

In his most recent works, Dapeng Liu drifts between worlds - the imagined and the observed, the abstract and the real. Geometry anchors the skies and water, casting shadows of the manmade into landscapes that breathe with mountain, mist, and memory. Dapeng is a finalist in the Contemporary Category of the 2025 Fisher’s Ghost Art Award with his painting Where the air folds.

Dapeng Liu, Three Dreams Cross Blue Rocks, Oil on Canvas, 92 x 122cm

View Available Work by Dapeng Liu
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