The Angelic Space: A Celebration of Piero Della Francesca

About the exhibition
A celebration of the quincentennial of the Italian painter Piero della Francesca, The Angelic Space honoured one of the early Renaissance’s most influential figures—an artist who harnessed mathematical theory to create some of the period’s most arresting religious paintings.

The exhibition focused on the enduring influence of Piero’s work on contemporary practice, presenting works by twenty Australian artists—several of which were conceived as direct responses to della Francesca’s compositions. Featured works included Ewen McDonald’s Egg Wall, 1989, comprising five hundred plastic, sand-filled egg forms that explore the egg as a vessel of architectural illusionism; and Rosalie Gascoigne’s Cloister, 1978 ,—a memory box that evokes the concept of the relic.

Artists who created new works included Gail Hastings, who addressed issues of positive and negative space; Robert Owen, who explored mystic spaces, luminous materials and astrologies; and Terri Bird, who proposed extrapolated tile patterns found in della Francesca’s Flagellation of Christ (1459–60) as a way of coming to terms with the measurements of the architectural space depicted in this masterpiece.

The exhibition's title, The Angelic Space, was drawn from architectural historian (and exhibition co-curator) Harriet Edquist’s description of the sacred geometry and ambient space found in key works by Piero della Francesca.

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^{Image: Gail Hastings, This Is Not An Art Library 1992, wood, paper, watercolour, felt, cushions, books, 150 cm diameter x 80 cm. Collection of the artist}