SYDNEY.- The Museum of Contemporary Australia Art (MCA Australia) will commence a national tour of Maria Fernanda Cardoso: Spiders of Paradise in 2024, celebrating the natural beauty and wonder of the Australian Maratus spider. The exhibition is developed and toured by MCA Australia and will be presented in six galleries across Australia.

Maria Fernanda Cardoso is a Colombian Australian artist who is internationally renowned for using unconventional and organic materials to consider nature and its links to culture and science. Using sculpture, photography, installation, video and performance, her work examines the connections and tensions between society and the natural world.

The MCA Australia touring exhibition of Spiders of Paradise presents Cardoso’s ongoing photographic project on the captivating tiny Australian Maratus spider. Engaging the creative terrain between science, art and nature, this exhibition celebrates the remarkable beauty of the natural world and reveals the sophisticated lives of creatures that are usually unseen.

For Cardoso the Maratus spider holds a special place in the natural ecosystem. She says, ‘The Maratus spiders of Australia are the most colourful, flamboyant, sexy, and charming spiders on the planet. To me, their use of colour, gesture, sound and movement makes them sophisticated visual and performing artists. They are also the smallest performers I know of, on average about 3-5mm in size, smaller than a grain of rice.’

The exhibition is centered around seventeen large-scale digital photographic portraits of various species of the Maratus, displaying their unique and brightly coloured abdomens that form part of their elaborate mating rituals. Cardoso has worked with renowned scientific imager Geoff Thompson and entomologist Andy Wang from the Queensland Museum, who specialise in deep focus microphotography and microscopic specimen preparation to create these large-scale photographs. Each photographic image is comprised of over 1000 individual photos which together reveal the spiders’ nuanced colour and form in stunning detail.

Accompanying the suite of framed photographic works is a large-scale immersive projection of Cardoso’s acclaimed video On the Origins of Art I-II (2016), a work co-owned by MCA Australia and Tate through its International Joint Acquisition Program. This work presents the complex courtship ritual of the Maratus, a sophisticated communication through dance and vibration, which culminates in the display of their colourful patterns.

MCA Australia has worked closely with the artist to develop the exhibition as part of her 2019/20 New Dimensions: NSW Visual Arts (Established) Fellowship. This award developed in partnership with Create NSW and MCA Australia has enabled Cardoso to expand her ongoing series Spiders of Paradise, to create new works for this touring exhibition.

Participating exhibition galleries include:

Cairns Art Gallery, QLD: 31 August – 24 November 2024
Tweed Regional Gallery, NSW: 10 May 2025 – 3 August 2025
Geraldton Art Gallery, WA: 23 August – 2 November 2025
Bunjil Place, VIC: 27 November 2025 – 22 February 2026
Orange Regional Gallery, NSW: 7 March – 17 May 2026
Canberra Museum & Gallery, ACT: 30 May – 23 August 2026

Maria Fernanda Cardoso was born in Bogota, Colombia in 1963. She has lived and worked in Sydney since 1997. Drawing inspiration from the natural world, her work incorporates a range of non-traditional materials that are transformed into installations, sculptures, performances, photography and video. Maria Fernanda Cardoso has exhibited widely in Australia and internationally for over four decades. Her work is held the collections of major museums and galleries in Australia, USA, Latin America, Europe and the UK, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Tate, London. She is the recipient of numerous awards and scholarships and represented Colombia at the Venice Biennale in 2003. Cardoso has realised a series of significant and much-loved public artworks in Australia and internationally, including the 335 square meter mural Ripples and Droplets (2022), commissioned by UDS United Development Sydney for Castle Residencies, Sydney; While I Live I Will Grow (2018), commissioned by the City of Sydney Council, as part of the Green Square Public Art Program and Cemetery: Vertical Garden (1999), commissioned by Museum of Modern Art, New York, for the exhibition Modern Starts: People, Places, Things.

Maria Fernanda Cardoso: Spiders of Paradise is an exhibition developed and toured by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.