Triple Exhibition Opening

Ariel Rowan | Maya Wilson | Dean Leslie Heaton

The Serpentine Community Gallery is pleased to present a triple exhibition featuring new bodies of work by Ariel Rowan, Maya Wilson, and Dean Leslie Heaton.

Each artist brings a distinct voice and perspective, offering audiences the opportunity to encounter three individual practices within a shared exhibition context.

Ariel Rowan — exhibition title: 'Lived Eclectience'

Ariel Rowan’s exhibition Lived Eclectience — a term combining Lived Experience and Eclecticism — draws together works from a 20-year (on and off) creative practice. Based in the Northern Rivers, Ariel is a father of three and an artist whose life experience deeply informs his work.

The exhibition includes intimate, deeply personal paintings alongside vibrant still lifes and landscapes of the rivers surrounding Lismore, created in response to lived experiences of the floods. Ariel’s recent studies in Psychology and Creative Practice have further informed his approach, allowing him to integrate reflection, theory, and lived reality into his visual language. Embracing Eclecticism has unlocked a sense of freedom in his practice — a permission to paint “everything.”

Maya Wilson - exhibition title: 'Still, Growing'

Maya (Beetle) Wilson is a twenty-five year old Pakeha artist, raised locally out in the border rangers, and now studying art locally too. 

My work is grounded in attentive observation. Still, Growing is an exhibition shaped by quiet attention to time, bodies, and place. The works move between figures and landscapes, holding softness, restraint, and change in balance. Growth is treated not as progress or arrival, but as something continuous and lived.

Artist Talk: During the exhibition, Ariel will present artist talks exploring both the making of the works and the lived experiences they reflect. These talks, previously delivered as lectures to psychology and first-responder students, offer insight into living fully while navigating chronic illness, mortality, and bipolar psychosis, with honesty, compassion, and openness.