AUGUST 2026

Young at Heart was a powerful mother-daughter exhibition about what happens when women stop apologising for getting older and start asking what this next chapter might look like on their own terms.

Exhibited alongside Diamond by Liz Lea, the collection brought together painting, sculpture and installation to explore changing bodies, shifting identities, motherhood, loneliness, freedom, resilience and the search for steadiness in midlife.

But before a single brush touched canvas, there was a question that needed to be answered...

It started with listening.

Eryn couldn't answer the question of what midlife really feels like alone. So she went looking for the women who could.

Through an anonymous survey and conversations with women in the community, more than 20 responses came in. They spoke candidly about bodies that no longer felt familiar, hormones that seemed to have a mind of their own, identities that had shifted beneath their feet and the strange freedom that can come with finally letting go of expectations.

No two stories were alike, yet the same feelings kept surfacing.

Mother and daughter then independently painted their own interpretations of four recurring themes.

Once Eryn had completed her works, the pair held an art bootcamp so she could help Cheryl explore new techniques and discover how she could best express her own responses to the themes.

The result was a collection painted by two, but voiced by many.

  • Reflection & Identity

    Midlife asks women to release younger versions of themselves while stepping into someone new. For many, that release feels less like loss and more like relief… the weight of striving for approval finally set down. As the body slows and time becomes visible, energy grows more precious and more selective. This is the quiet clarity of transition, a softening into a truer, freer self.

  • The Hormonal Heroine

    Behind the demands of the everyday, many women navigate profound change in silence. Menopause, exhaustion, invisibility… they are so often dismissed as "just part of life". This theme is an acknowledgement and quiet resistance… a reminder that what women believe they carry alone is, in fact, profoundly shared.

  • Body Neutrality

    A woman's relationship with her body is rarely settled. Acceptance is an ongoing negotiation between honouring the body and wanting to change it, confidence and discomfort, visibility and invisibility. Not every woman learns to love her body. Not every woman hates it. Most live somewhere in between.

  • The Search for Steadiness

    Amid exhaustion and constant change, women search for something steady to hold. But steadiness rarely arrives as an obvious achievement… it lives in ordinary things like morning light, music, nature, rest. This theme honours that quiet need to return to oneself, and the truth that sometimes simply wanting peace is its own form of hope.

Whimsy with wisdom.

Eryn creates immersive exhibitions that invite people to connect with an idea in more than one way.

For Eryn, an exhibition should be more than canvases hung on white walls. The environment around the work can deepen the story, create visual interest and give visitors a stronger emotional connection to the concept. Young at Heart was an opportunity to bring that approach to life through a combination of colour, texture, installation and atmosphere.

Inspired in part by the immersive worlds created by CJ Hendry, Eryn wanted the exhibition to feel like a place visitors could step into, rather than simply walk through.

The visual brief Eryn kept coming back to was simple: Whimsy with wisdom.

Using the colours that felt most unmistakably Young at Heart, Eryn created a dreamy garden and pond scape throughout the space in collaboration with florist Gracias Flower Studio.

There was something deliberately playful about it all. A little bit magical. A little bit strange. But underneath the whimsy was something grounded and knowing. Exactly like the women the exhibition was made for.

The exhibition took place in the middle of winter, which presented an unexpected design challenge.

The venue's large window wall would normally flood the space with natural light. In August, by the time visitors arrived for the opening, it would already be dark.

This window wall became an opportunity to create a dreamy introduction to the exhibition, transforming what could have felt like a limitation into one of the most atmospheric parts of the room.

A custom-made plum curtain created a rich backdrop, while faux moss, layered and shaped over chicken wire, bedsheets and styrofoam, transformed the space into something that felt halfway between a garden, a memory and a place that had only existed in Eryn's imagination.

Old mirrors sourced through Facebook Marketplace became ponds, reflecting the colour, greenery and light back into the room.

The result was a space that felt less like walking into a gallery and more like stepping into another world.

Sweeping around the exhibition space, little moss moments appeared between the artworks. Plinths were dressed with taper candles and dainty florals, creating pockets of warmth throughout the room.

At the centre, a branch sourced from Cheryl's garden hung from the ceiling.

Quite literally, a branch from this season of her life.

Artificial amaranths spilled from it, drawing the eye towards the centre plinths where smaller sculptural works and raffle prizes waited to be admired.

Back towards the entryway, a hanging green cloth softened the space while delicate flowers appeared to drip from above. Each one had been individually hand-crafted from glassine paper.

Nothing was accidental.

Every detail was there to make the room feel tactile, immersive and just a little bit magical.

Young at Heart was warm. Curious. A little nostalgic.

There were moments of quiet amongst the colour, moments that encouraged visitors to slow down and really look.

The room was a place where getting older didn't feel like something to hide from. A place where softness and strength could exist together. A place that felt young at heart without pretending to be young.

Two generations, one exhibition

For Eryn and Cheryl, Young at Heart was their first exhibition together.

However, their creative relationship began decades earlier, when Cheryl spent countless hours making art and craft with her . Glue, glitter and giggles eventually gave way to something neither of them could have predicted.

This time, the roles had shifted.

Cheryl had returned to painting after raising her family and finding herself with more time to explore her own creativity. And now, she was learning techniques from Eryn.

Their work naturally approached the exhibition from different places.

Eryn explored the experience of watching bodies, identities and expectations change, while Cheryl's work reflected her own new chapter and the hard-won peace of learning to go with it.

Together, the works created a conversation between generations.

Not a lesson from mother to daughter, or daughter to mother.

Just two women looking at the same stage of life from different sides of the timeline.

Opening the conversation

The opening began with a private VIP hour for media, sponsors, supporters and VIP ticket holders.

Guests were welcomed into the transformed space with complimentary drinks and a hand-stitched VIP pass before joining a gallery tour and artist talk from Eryn and Cheryl.

The conversation then opened up to a Q&A, giving guests the opportunity to ask questions about the work, the collaboration and the stories behind the exhibition.

When the doors opened to the general public, the artist speech followed half an hour later.

Canberra psychologist Emily Brichacek, who specialises in eating disorders, also joined the evening to speak about eating disorders in midlife and challenge one of the misconceptions at the heart of the exhibition:

That eating disorders are something that only happen to the young.

They aren't.

Taking the conversation beyond the gallery.

The conversation around Young at Heart started before opening night.

Journalist Erin Cross of HerCanberra published an editorial exploring how Eryn was reframing women in midlife. The feature introduced readers to the exhibition's themes, the mother-daughter collaboration and the research behind the work, helping build anticipation before visitors ever stepped into the space. 

The coverage also brought one of the exhibition's most important messages to the forefront: eating disorders don't have an age limit. The feature explored Eryn's desire to challenge the misconception that eating disorders only affect young people and to bring greater visibility to the experiences of women in midlife.

After the exhibition opened, journalist Hayley Nicholls of Region Canberra captured the experience from the other side of the doors in her feature, Art that Pops, Smiles, Screams and Starts Important Conversations.

The coverage helped Young at Heart reach beyond the people who physically walked through the exhibition.

It meant the conversation about midlife, changing bodies, identity and eating disorders could continue beyond the gallery walls.

For an exhibition built around making overlooked experiences visible, that mattered.

Young at Heart wasn't just something to look at. It was something to talk about.

Accessible art in a time of rising costs.

Following previous exhibitions, Eryn had found herself with limited space at home and a growing collection of unsold works.

After last year's exhibition, Envy, Upcycled – with people separately enquiring bout the same piece, while other works received less attention – the contrast made Eryn curious about how an auction might change the way people engaged with the work.

Rather than relying on fixed prices and waiting for the right buyer to come along, she decided to test the clearance rate through a live and silent auction.

The approach was also shaped by the wider economic climate. With interest rates, petrol prices and everyday living costs continuing to rise, an auction offered a more accessible way for people to buy original art at a price they could determine for themselves.

The evening consisted of a live auction, giving several of the larger works their moment in the spotlight. All five larger works sold, creating a 100% clearance rate for the live auction.

The eight works inspired by the midlife survey were also offered through silent auction, with every one finding a buyer.

Alongside the artwork, guests could enter a raffle made possible by generous donations from Canberra businesses. Three prize packs were assembled, each valued at approximately $600, with 38 raffle tickets sold across the exhibition.

It was another way for the wider community to become part of the project.

5% of every sale, 10% of every ticket sale and 100% of every raffle ticket purchased was donated to Butterfly Foundation.

The Impact

Young at Heart wasn't created simply to sell paintings. It was created to start conversations that don't always get started.

Young at Heart was created to challenge the idea that ageing means becoming less visible, less interesting or less worthy of taking up space. To shine a light on eating disorders in a demographic that is so often overlooked.

The response was bigger than the artists could have asked for.

22 of 23 artworks sold

24 registered bidders

100% auction clearance rate

38 raffle tickets sold

And most importantly, $1,513.00 was raised for the Butterfly Foundation.

Backed by a community.

Young at Heart was never a one-woman project. From health professionals to creative collaborators, local businesses and the venue itself, a community of people helped bring the exhibition to life.

The exhibition was supported by a group of Canberra businesses and organisations who believed in its message and wanted to help create space for conversations around women's health, ageing, identity and eating disorders.

Kieser Kingston

At Kieser Kingston, strength is seen as fundamental to lifelong health. Their evidence-based approach combines Physiotherapy, Exercise Physiology and supervised strength training to help people reduce pain, improve mobility and build confidence at every stage of life.

As an Impact Partner, Kieser helped support an exhibition centred around women navigating change, reinforcing the idea that strength can look different across every season of life.

Fundamental Health Canberra

Fundamental Health is an award-winning multidisciplinary allied health clinic in Kambah, providing holistic, evidence-based care across a range of health disciplines, with a particular focus on Women's Health.

Their support aligned closely with the exhibition's exploration of the physical and emotional changes that can accompany midlife, helping bring a health-focused perspective into a conversation that is often treated as purely personal.

Made by two. Held by many.

Young at Heart began with two women asking questions about what it means to grow older. But it became something much bigger.

It belonged to the women who shared their stories through the survey. To the women who saw pieces of themselves in the work. To the people who came through the doors, asked questions, stayed for the conversations and took those conversations home with them.

It belonged to the businesses that donated raffle prizes, the partners who helped bring the exhibition to life and the people who bought the work and carried a little piece of it away.

And, of course, it belonged to a mother and daughter who found themselves making art together all over again.

Growing older and staying young at heart were never opposites. They were always meant to exist together.

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