David Egan

David Egan’s practice of painting is defined by an ongoing enquiry into acts of looking and the materiality of images. There is a quiet undercurrent of religious imagery and sensibility in Egan’s work, rather than being directly referenced, its presence tends to surface indirectly, as a residue within the paintings’ attention to ritual, transformation and the threshold between the material and the immaterial. Egan approaches painting as a procedure of ‘colour handling’, a term the artist defines as a paradoxical space — as colour is a neurological phenomenon which cannot be touched or handled — from which to interrogate some of the conceptual, emotional and spiritual registers of the medium.

Egan lives and works in Melbourne; in 2026 he was the recipient of the Bayside Painting Prize; he has exhibited regularly for the past decade including the solo exhibitions at Neon Parc, Melbourne (2025 & 2022); Hayden’s Gallery, Melbourne (2021); Sutton Gallery, Melbourne (2019); and Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne (2015). His work has been included in survey shows such as Knowing Otherwise, MUMA (2026); Thin Skin, MUMA, Melbourne (2023); Painting. More Painting, ACCA (2016); and Fabrik; conceptual, minimalist and performative approaches to textiles, Ian Potter Museum of Art and Margret Lawrence Gallery of Art (2016).