Next date: Saturday, 11 October 2025 | 10:00 AM
to Saturday, 14 February 2026 | 04:00 PM
Taking its title from John Waters’ cult classic, Female Trouble explores archetypal femininity through the lens of cinema.
Historically, film has portrayed women as damaged, deranged, or dangerous — particularly in sensationalist titles like Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, The Female Butcher, and Girls on the Loose. These narratives amplify stereotypes, shaping how femininity is constructed and consumed on screen.
Featuring wax pastel drawings, motorcycle jackets, studded gloves, and embellished helmets, Female Trouble unfolds as a fictional mise en scène: a punk, queer, and political Female Film Club storms the cinema, intent on reclaiming the screen. This imagined takeover disrupts traditional filmic tropes, asking viewers to reconsider who gets to tell the story — and how.
Female Trouble invites audiences into a cinematic universe where female identity takes centre stage, camp aesthetics reign supreme, and the stereotypical portrayal of women in film is radically upended.
Join us at the opening event for Female Trouble on Sat 11 October 4pm - 6:30pm, click here for more details. Free to attend, all welcome.
Don't miss the exhibition tour for Female Trouble on Sat 25 October from 2pm - 3pm. Free to attend, all welcome. Click here to register your attendance.
About the artist
Pia de Bruyn is a visual artist and educator working across drawing, painting, film, and sculpture. Born in Meanjin Brisbane, she currently lives and works on coastal Wadawurrung Country in Victoria. Since graduating from Monash University in 2004 with a BFA in Painting, Pia has exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions, with her work held in private collections across Australia. Alongside her practice, she has worked in arts education since 2005 and has been teaching Visual Arts and Sculpture at a secondary level for over a decade.
Exhibitions include Midsumma and Australia Post Art Award, No Vacancy Gallery, Melbourne 2025; New Age Totems, Bus Projects, Melbourne 2015; Merrang, Boom Gallery, Newtown 2013; It’s not the bullet that kills you (It’s the hole), (Collaboration with Andrew Atchison), First Draft Gallery, Sydney 2012; My Metaphorical Asshole and Other Drawings, First Draft Gallery, Sydney 2008; Were You There? (Collaboration with Andrew Atchison) Next Wave Festival at Missing Link Records, Central Station Records and Metropolis Books and Music, Melbourne 2006.
She is a recipient of the 2025 Nancy Fairfax Artist in Residency at the Tweed Regional Gallery and Margaret Olley Art Centre in Northern NSW.
Pia de Bruyn was awarded the 2025 Bundoora Homestead Art Prize at the Midsumma and Australia Post Art Award.