HEIRLOOM, GABRIELLE HALL-LOMAX
Gabrielle Hall-Lomax: Heirloom
There is a quiet kind of power in Gabrielle Hall-Lomax's work. Intentionality that whispers- each shadow, every fold of fabric contributes to Hall-Lomax’s work. That same essence is present in Gabrielle herself. Poised, she greets you with the same clarity and consideration that is woven into her images.
Hall-Lomax’s latest ongoing collection, Heirloom, offers a meditation on family, memory, and identity. Commissioned for the Blaze exhibition at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space and shot over three months in the landscape of her family's space, Heirloom feels deeply intimate yet resistant to literal interpretation.
The collection spans out from Archival Letters - as the viewer we see stacked pieces of paper against a gallery wall and are just able to make out a few words- ‘Dear Dad, sorry’- or small tears in some of the papers. Words that could mean so many different things to different people and yet we cannot read the whole letters. Hall-Lomax explained these were exchanges between her late grandfather and her father—fragments of history spanning decades—were the basis of her collection Heirloom, a tapestry woven between past and present.
“I wanted to do something in the line of memory, family, identity,” Hall-Lomax reflected, “...the ideas of what we choose to remember, and what we don't, within the family.” Heirloom as a collection situates these historical artifacts within a broader, more abstract visual language. Dark and light. Control and restraint. Curated shadows turning personal history into visual poetry —the emotional artifacts we choose to pass down through generations, often unspoken with quiet weight
Candle
One of the collection’s most talked-about works, Candle, invites a range of interpretations from gallery goers. The piece features the hands of Hall-Lomax’s own parents: “My mum’s hand is the one holding up… she’s always been strong, always holding the family together.” One viewer at the exhibition described Candle as a man reaching toward the flame, about to burn himself—while a woman stops him. A gesture of both protection and obstruction. Hall-Lomax welcomes the multiplicity: “That reading is really interesting. I did play a lot with hand placement. At one point my dad’s hand felt too aggressive. I changed it. [...] These dynamics we inherit—can say so much.” The folds in the tablecloth, the light, the precise positioning—none of it is accidental. Hall-Lomax often uses fabric for its practical and symbolic purposes: “Dark and folded fabrics hold a lot of emotional charge. They’re dramatic, and they let me build sets wherever I am with just my camera”.
Mirror
That sense of lineage carries through to Mirror, a quiet portrait that sold within the first hour of the BLAZE exhibition opening night. “I was surprised,” she says, “It’s so intimate—of my mum and I. But the buyer really connected to it.” Kim, Gabrielle’s mother, features frequently in her work, adding another layer to the story being told: “It’s a weird dynamic shift. You become the director. But I see her as the strongest person I know, and I want to reflect that back to her.”
Ring
Another standout is Ring, shot with the help of Gabrielle’s father on their farm. A circle of fire burned into the earth, captured on film across two rolls. “The circle can mean so many things,” she explains, “but for this series, it felt like a symbol of repetition, of family patterns, of things that don’t change.”
Heirloom feels close, warm and cool—rooted in tactile memories and ancestral echo. “I kind of like to think of all my work as one body,” Despite the cohesion across Hall-Lomax’s work, it resists total legibility. Her works remain just out of reach—like a memory you can feel but not fully articulate. There’s weight to that ambiguity. The letters, the fabric, the gestures— invitations of reflection, not explanations.
Up Next for Hall-Lomax
Heirloom, while born of a specific chapter, is far from over with new pieces having been added since Gabrielle spoke with OAL. Meanwhile, she’s already deep into her next collaboration—a project with long-time creative partner Meg De Young.
Together, they’re exploring self-defence from a feminist lens, interrogating how women navigate both public and private space, including the body itself. After taking self-defence classes together over the past year, the two are now building visual experiences around this.
In a world often driven by speed and spectacle, Hall-Lomax’s practice feels like an antidote with intention and feeling. Allowing the smallest details—a hand placement, a shadow, a tear in paper—to hold presence. Heirloom doesn’t demand to be understood but leaves you to return conceptually, again and again, finding new meaning with each read.
