Stepping into the Brisbane Powerhouse during the 2025 Brisbane Writers Festival, visitors encounter Writers on the Wall—a vibrant new exhibition by Jackie Ryan that transforms the Underground Theatre Foyer into a celebration of creativity, storytelling, and portraiture.
Working with dye sublimation on aluminium, Ryan brings together an extraordinary cast of Australian writers—including Anita Heiss, Susan Johnson, Ceridwen Dovey, and Richard Glover—captured in bold, witty, and unconventional portraits that blur the line between author and artwork.
In these images, humour and reverence collide: each portrait reimagines the literary persona through a cinematic, theatrical lens. As Carody Culver notes, “The series celebrates its subjects’ magnificence through a new lens, playfully embodying BWF’s mandate to put the festive in festival and reminding you of art’s boundless capacity to entertain and enchant.”
Ryan, known for her interdisciplinary practice spanning art, writing, and curation, brings her signature blend of satire and sincerity to this project—transforming portraits into living narratives that invite audiences to look closer and perhaps, to recognise themselves among the walls.
Image: Jackie Ryan. Had a Blast (featuring Anita Heiss and Susan Johnson), 2025. Dye sublimation on aluminium, 42 x 59 x 2cm. Photo: courtesy of the artwork and Onespace.
