Meeting Mona Ryder
Charmaine Lyons
- Sitter: Mona Ryder
- Medium: Photograph
- Dimensions: 65cm x 96cm
- Representation: This artist represents themselves
- Categories: Female artist, Digital or photographic artwork
About the artwork
Born in Brisbane in 1945, Mona Ryder is one of Australia’s most significant feminist artists, with a practice spanning over fifty years and works held in Australian and international collections. The subject of a major retrospective at QUT Art Museum, her work explores domesticity, memory and gendered ritual through an extraordinary range of media and material.
Artist Charmaine Lyons connected strongly with Ryder and set out to capture the complex layers of the woman behind the work with this portrait. “I wanted to capture Ryder as a feminist, but she’s also a humanist. She doesn’t just focus on feminism; she focuses on the human condition.”
In this portrait, Ryder sits in her Yeerongpilly studio amid a charged arrangement of symbolic forms, cradling a fabric figure in her hands. Her posture is quiet and nurturing, her gaze intensely present. The work holds two sides of Ryder: the fierce artist whose visual language has helped shape Australian art, and the shy and humble woman behind it.
About the artist
Charmaine Lyons is a multidisciplinary artist based on Kabi Kabi Country in Gympie, working across photography and ceramics. Her portrait practice is devoted to the elevation of women, particularly women artists. A finalist in the 2025 Brisbane Portrait Prize and the 2026 Percival Portrait Prize.
