Why do we crave closeness while keeping one foot out the door? Why do we love, withdraw, cling to or sabotage our connections with others? Attachment Styles brings together works from the 19th to 21st century to explore these questions, showing how artists have long grappled with the emotional complexity of human relationships between individuals, communities and the environments they inhabit.

The display draws on the language of attachment styles: anxious, avoidant, disorganised and secure. These psychological concepts were first developed by John Bowlby in the 1950s and later expanded by Mary Ainsworth to describe the emotional and behavioural patterns that shape our bonds from infancy through to adulthood. In recent years, these ideas have spilled into popular culture, saturating social media with memes, reels and quizzes that map our relational behaviours—ghosting, breadcrumbing, love bombing, negging, to name a few—onto the styles of attaching. 

Highlights on display include Frederick McCubbin’s Down on his luck and Moyes Bay, Beaumaris, Hans Heysen’s Droving into the light, Arthur Streeton’s The hillside, John Nash’s The Bathers, Lucian Freud’s Naked Man With Rat and John Longstaff’s Breaking the news.

The exhibition also includes works by Arthur Boyd, Russell Drysdale, John Russell and Sydney Long, and more recent and contemporary acquisitions from local artists Tom Freeman, Mary Moore, and a vibrant series of classic rock and pop star portraits by Naarm/Melbourne-based artist Colleen Ahern.

Image credits - Frederick McCubbin Down on his luck 1889. Oil on canvas, 114.5 x 152.5 cm. The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased 1896. Photo: Bo Wong. Colleen Ahern 37.16 min 2015. Oil on board, 30 x 30 cm. The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased, 2023.