Town Hall Gallery has officially unveiled The Uncomfortable Truth: Maree Clarke and Megan Evans.

The major new exhibition brings two artists into dialogue for the first time, until January 30.

Across more than 50 works, including new commissions, the exhibition draws on historical events, family narratives and the artists' own experiences to reveal how invasion, dispossession and inherited responsibility shapes current-day Australia.

Descendants from opposite sides of Australia's colonial history, Maree Clarke, a Mutti Mutti/Yorta Yorta and Boon Wurrung/Wemba Wemba artist and Megan Evans, a fifth-generation settler Australian of Scottish and Irish ancestry, have shared a friendship of more than 25 years, encompassing artistic collaborations and five years working together as co-curators at Wyndham Art Gallery.

Throughout, their practices have developed in parallel, each firmly grounded in a distinct cultural position. The Uncomfortable Truth brings these trajectories into direct conversation for their first joint presentation.

Rather than collapsing their perspectives into one, the exhibition holds their differences in productive exchange, placing Clarke's cultural knowledge, practices of mourning and acts of revival alongside Evans' interrogation of settler privilege, inherited violence and commitment to truth telling, while foregrounding the exchange of knowledge and the responsibilities of working together from distinct positions within colonial history.

"When Megan and I first began talking about this exhibition, we reflected on our parallel lives and the different worlds we grew up in," said Clarke.

"But as the work developed, I realised it was about something much bigger. We come from very different experiences of Australia's history, but our work speaks to the lasting impacts of colonisation and the importance of truth-telling."

"For me, truth-telling is not just about looking back. It is about recognising the experiences of our families, honouring those who came before us, and making sure these stories are not forgotten. It is about creating space for understanding, respect and change. I believe that being willing to face uncomfortable truths is part of what makes us human."

"'The Uncomfortable Truth' is what I consider lingers in the culture of our country," Evans said.

"My work is an attempt to carve a way for people like myself, from colonial settler ancestry, to confront and accept this truth so that we can move forward. I situate myself at the forefront of that truth, using my ancestors who were born here in the late 1800's and who occupied land as squatters."

"Placing my work alongside my friend and longtime colleague Maree, is a stark reminder of the divide that still echoes from those early days. Working with my nephew to tell the story of my late husband's experience of the stolen generation, gives form to that echo."

Clarke is a pivotal figure in the reclamation of southeast Australian Aboriginal cultural and artistic practices. For more than three decades, her work has focused on reviving traditions lost or forced into dormancy through invasion and colonisation.

Working across photography, sculpture, video and installation, and with materials ranging from glass and organic matter to 3D printing, Clarke explores customary ceremony, ancestral knowledge and the continuing effects of dispossession.

Her collaborative and intergenerational approach places the transmission of cultural knowledge to family and community at the centre of her practice.

Among the new works commissioned for The Uncomfortable Truth is a major photographic series by Clarke featuring 19 of her nieces and nephews dressed in Georgian and Victorian clothing. Beneath the colonial attire, her nephews wear T-shirts painted with scarification markings from her Ritual and Ceremony series, while the women appear in flower-adorned mourning veils, some bearing traditional mourning markings across their eyes.

Through the visual language of colonial portraiture, Clarke explores the imposition of colonialism while asserting the enduring presence of First Nations cultural knowledge, ceremony and identity.

Evans is an interdisciplinary artist whose career began with the creation of large-scale political murals in the 1980s. Working across video, photography, sculpture and installation, her practice examines the colonial inheritance of contemporary Australia and the ways domestic objects, property and material comfort can carry histories of dispossession and violence.

Evans has frequently explored the history of her great-grandmother, Isabella Kelly, née Robertson, and situates herself in the clothes and objects of her ancestors' era, while the life and institutional records of her late husband, Gunditjmara artist and activist Les Griggs, a member of the Stolen Generations, have informed her recent and ongoing work.

Among Evans' new works is a series of 19th-century christening dresses embroidered with the names of the children's homes in which Les Griggs was placed as a member of the Stolen Generations.

Drawing on her personal connection to the enduring impacts of colonisation, the work examines the radically different experiences of First Nations and settler children, confronting the effects for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children being forcibly stolen from their families to grow up without connection to language or culture.

"We're incredibly proud to present the first exhibition to bring two formidable Naarm-based artists, Maree Clarke and Megan Evans, into dialogue," said Town Hall Gallery curator Rachel Keir-Smith.

"The works have been carefully positioned in conversation, together illuminating the ongoing impacts of colonisation, the importance of truth-telling and the role of culture, history and intergenerational knowledge in collective healing.

"The exhibition is largely guided by Maree and Megan's lived experiences and family histories, and the ways both artists have used and shared their creativity to navigate pain, loss and injustice."

Cr Wes Gault mayor of Boroondara said the exhibition is an invitation to reflect on the continuing impacts of colonisation.

"The exhibition is an invitation to reflect on the continuing impacts of colonisation through the powerful work of two significant contemporary artists," he said.

"Town Hall Gallery is honoured to present the first joint exhibition by Maree Clarke and Megan Evans, whose practices bring distinct cultural perspectives into meaningful dialogue."

"Through more than 50 works, including new commissions, 'The Uncomfortable Truth' offers our community an opportunity to engage with truth-telling, cultural knowledge and the responsibilities we share in understanding Australia's colonial history."

The Uncomfortable Truth: Maree Clarke and Megan Evans is presented at Town Hall Gallery until 30 January 2027.

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