Vivien Gaston is a Naarm/Melbourne-based figurative painter reinterpreting the sublime and the mythic. She sources images from observation, past artists, cinema and photography, transforming interior psychologies in dialogue with the history of art. The natural world is seen as both fragile and enduring and accessed by humans only through a sublime vision. In landscape, portraits and narrative subjects she explores the material qualities of painting and drawing and the abstract resonance of light and space. She was a finalist in the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, Juniper Gallery, Sydney, 2022, and the Rick Amor Drawing Prize, McClelland Gallery, Langwarrin, 2024.

Her painting is informed by her work as a recognised curator and writer, having published widely and curated several highly regarded exhibitions at major galleries, including the National Gallery of Victoria.