This event has ended.
You’re invited to the opening night of Social Realism - a new exhibition by Fremantle-based artist Tessa MacKay.
Following presentations in Sydney, Melbourne, and London, MacKay returns home with a body of work that turns its gaze to the early days of social media, digital photography, and the images we once shared without thinking twice. Shown for the first time in Perth, Social Realism brings together major works from the series, including the unveiling of Deep Chats.jpg, created during MacKay’s 2025 residency at PICA.
Social Realism focuses on a brief but defining moment in visual culture: the mid-to-late 2000s, when early digital cameras collided with the rise of Facebook. In this formative era, images were uploaded freely - often poorly lit, unfiltered, and casually tagged - before the advent of curation, optimisation, and personal branding.
By painstakingly repainting these so-called “low-value” images, MacKay reclaims their material presence. Pixel bloom, red-eye, compression artefacts and digital noise are rendered in paint, transforming forgotten online images into objects of attention, care, and permanence.
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Tessa MacKay (b.1991) is an Australian/New Zealand artist based in Fremantle (Walyalup), Western Australia. MacKay has honed a high proficiency in photorealism and hyperrealism, as proved when receiving the 2019 Archibald “Packing Room Prize”, and a 2022 Retrospective exhibit.
MacKay has gradually turned her practice in on itself to interrogate; what constitutes an image worth painting? In an open-ended and on-going exploration of this question, MacKay’s painting practice has expanded, now blending photorealism with historic painting movements to transpose “low value” digital images. Via this renewed technical approach and complete inversion towards source imagery, MacKay’s works have evolved to index step-changes in digital image making and sharing technologies, highlighting their influence on the role of painters and societal perceptions of value in images, in both problematising and affirming ways. Tessa MacKay is represented by LAILA, Sydney
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Presented by Lawson Flats, Social Realism marks a rare Perth showing from one of Australia’s most compelling contemporary painters. Join us to celebrate the opening with a drink in hand, and the chance to encounter MacKay’s work up close.
Tessa MacKay, Social Realism | Opening Night
Thursday 5 February, 6.00–8.00PM
RSVP essential — LF Members and General Admission welcome
Lounge bar will be open throughout the evening with soundscape by Brutal Contact.
Dinner at Luis’ is encouraged — book your table here.
Image credit: Lucida Studio.