Marlee McMahon unsettles the procedural vocabularies of hard-edge abstraction and constructivism to produce resonant compositions with a defined internal sense of tempo. Led by an intuitive studio process that draws attention to the spatial boundaries of the work, McMahon investigates the dynamic relationship between chromatic interaction and surface tension through abstract painting. Taken as a whole, McMahon’s practice emphasises the human presence found within abstraction. Employing deceptive, redolent shapes and tones, her sharp compositions strengthen the links between action and awareness, rhythm and form.

Born in 1996 in Sale, VIC, McMahon received a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) from the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne in 2017. During her undergraduate degree, McMahon was awarded the prestigious Cranbourne Fellowship in Visual Art in 2019, undertaking a residency at the British School at Rome, IT. Following her BFA, McMahon received the Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship in 2020, through which she completed a Master of Fine Art (MFA) at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam, NL in 2023.

McMahon has exhibited frequently throughout Australia, Aoetearoa New Zealand and Europe. She has presented work within institutions such as MaMA, Rotterdam, NL; European Cultural Centre in Venice, IT; British School at Rome, Rome, IT and the Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, AU, among others. Examples of McMahon’s work can be found in multiple notable public collections, including the Australian National University Art Collection, Canberra; Artbank, Sydney; Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, and numerous private collections in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.