FireWorks Gallery presents Party Gone Bad, a new exhibition of large-scale paintings by acclaimed Australian artist Pat Hoffie. Bringing together works produced between late 2025 and 2026, the exhibition responds to the anxieties, fractures and absurdities of contemporary life, including the challenges of free speech and the online “Hateosphere”.
Hoffie’s energetic paintings layer colour, darkness, characters and fragmented narratives through a physical process of dripping, scraping and squeegeeing paint. The resulting works invite close looking, revealing shifting stories and relationships beneath their complex surfaces.
Drawing on the social satire and scepticism of Germany’s Neue Sachlichkeit movement, Party Gone Bad confronts the turbulence of the present while maintaining a strong sense of humour, colour and optimism. At its heart, the exhibition is also a celebration of painting and its capacity to create expansive, impossible worlds.
Opening: Saturday 12 September, 3–5pm
