André de Vanny

This work will be on show at Carriageworks from 3-6 September as part of Curatorial+Co.'s Sydney Contemporary 2026 presentation.

André de Vanny explores the tension between the abject and the sublime, drawing on the ethereal qualities of early Renaissance painting and the visual language of contemporary abstraction. His practice is deeply physical, incorporating cycles of disintegration and repair that reflect the human experiences of trauma, resilience, and healing.

Says de Vanny of this work, "'Cormorant' unfolds across three panels, drawing on the structure of historical altarpieces to imagine a passage between earthly existence and an uncertain afterlife. The title recalls the black cormorants that haunted the inland lakes of my childhood in central Victoria. These majestic birds appeared like missives from the underworld, perching high among the dead river gums before silently disappearing beneath the water’s surface. Their quiet, mythic presence suggested neither menace nor comfort, but a threshold between worlds.

"That memory became essential to this painting, as masked figures, spectral witnesses and fragmented bodies drift beneath an inky darkness. The work replaces narrative certainty with symbolic relationships, allowing themes of sacrifice, mortality and transformation to emerge through gesture and atmosphere. Like the cormorant diving into unseen depths, the painting searches the subconscious for parables that continue to illuminate contemporary experience, where violence, compassion and hope coexist without fixed interpretation."