Jack Donegan and Arion Austin-Crowe

Assimilations

17 - 28 September 2025

Opening Night

Friday 19 September | 6 - 8 pm

G4

Artist Statement

The world we live in conditions us to view conformity as a virtue. To become a normal or average person is seen as a desirable trait, with ideas of who we should become being constantly ingrained into us from as soon as we learn about the world. Assimilations invites the viewer to question the nature of conformity, and aims to highlight the peculiarity of “normalcy”.

People are constantly measured by their deviation from this imaginary “average person”, being judged by their differences and the severity of these differences. Assimilations seeks to answer the rhetorical question of who this person is, and furthermore, show how much of themselves they must have had to give up, contorting and changing themselves to achieve this imagined comfort.

The uncanny yet familiar imagery present in the artworks of Donegan and Austin-Crowe’s Assimilations shifts viewers between states of comfort and introspection, and makes them consider how familiar, everyday world and its people are still holds so much that is unknown.

Artist Biography

Jack Donegan is an emerging Video Artist based in Melbourne. His work explores themes of movement, fluidity and aging through visual editing techniques. Jack’s creative journey began 3 years ago in the VCE art classroom where he discovered his connection and love for Video Arts. Drawing inspiration from video artists, Natascha Sadr Haghighian & Bill Viola, Donegan’s work is characterised by the adaptation of the human form and how that detaches the viewer from reality.

Arion Austin-Crowe is an emerging artist from Melbourne. He grew up in Northcote and is a recent graduate of Northcote High School, being awarded by the school for Outstanding Achievement in VCE: Art Making and Exhibiting in 2024.

In 2025, Austin-Crowe was commended as an honourable mention for the Young Archies in their 16-18 year old category and was nominated as a finalist for Gallery One’s Smallacombe Self-Portrait Prize 2025. His work was also shown at Brunswick St Gallery’s fifty squared art prize In June and July of the same year.

Arion primarily works with the medium of Oil Painting, also incorporating other mediums like Graphite and Ink into his practice. His work explores themes of identity, family, time and aging, ego, and the way that society and relationships change these things. Austin-Crowe draws inspiration from the local music scene, having worked with notable Melbourne based artists  such as The Noise and Peggy Frew.

Contact
Phone : (03) 9482 3550
mail@redgallery.com.au

Address
157 St Georges Rd
Fitzroy North, Victoria, 3068
Map

How to get here
Tram: Route 11
Stop 21 just north of Edinburgh Gardens

Melway Ref: 30B12
Parking in nearby streets

Bus: 504 (Reid Street)