Cover Image: De Rozario’s charcoal depictions of family members based on old archival portraits. Image by Danica Zuks.

A Bag of Rice for a Saturday Child is artist Natalie de Rozario’s first major solo exhibition and presents a stimulating series of realist charcoal, oil, and acrylic works along with installations that rekindle home-like spaces. Previously exhibited at Zig Zag Gallery at Kalamunda (13 March – 6 April 2026), and touring to DADAA Fremantle (15 May – 12 June 2026), this exhibition creates a feeling that home is not always what we expect, rather it can be defined as something flexible and mutable. In this exhibition the domestic and family life meets with political violence in a way that grates on and reshapes our idea of home. 

Entering the gallery through a touristic gift shop gives the exhibition an initial contrasting feeling of expansiveness. From souvenirs and the Australiana aesthetic to a comprehensive world of methodically curated large-scale art works. The artist does a fantastic job of building a world within the space – neither explicitly Burmese nor Western Australian – to invite us into a warm home. We see photographs and installations of family shrines that worship eclectic deities, ancestors and an array of spiritual icons. Cultural memory is piqued in all the works. I wondered who these people were and yet the blurred lines between the past and present are clear. They are from the past but exist as living entities within de Rozario’s consciousness. They are splayed and skewed but 100% alive! 

^{Views of the installation. First image (top left) by Natalie de Rozario, remaining images by Danica Zuks.}

Natalie de Rozario is a deeply committed and tireless artistic voice. Since 2013, she has been working as an artist and arts-worker/advocate since her visual arts degree and subsequent involvement in Paper Mountain and other regional and national arts organisations. Working from her studio, A Bag of Rice for a Saturday Child, is bold and subtly subversive. She works in charcoal and oils, making realist work that seethes with memories of domestic life. Depictions of Burmese ancestors draws forward the political and historical, with questions that probe the meaning of belonging in the Burmese diaspora. She also explores moments of her own growing awareness of being from a third space and migrant upbringing, whilst surrounded by a milieu that takes for granted the comfort of growing up in a singular place with a singular identity.  

De Rozario single-handedly forges this feeling through her charcoal depictions of family members based on old archival portraits. You might remember the Lester Prize submission Placed for which she was a finalist in 2023. In this uniquely recognisable work, a self-portrait in charcoal, her face is scored open on the paper and re-arranged in tiles so that angles of her face are interchanged and eyes and lips settle in disparate corners of the work. 

The current exhibition also uses this technique. It also frequently reflects on survivor’s guilt- related to the diptych to the left of the gallery: One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. The works are haunting, emotive and I felt confronted by the spiritual symbolism and violence that seem to regulate and coexist with each other so effortlessly. 

During the artist panel, de Rozario reflected on survivor’s guilt and occupying many cultures including Burmese and Australian culture, both mentally and physically.

“Looking at a country where your family may be from… and watching it crumble, watching it suffer, suffering ourselves as we watch it. And feeling a bit powerless, maybe guilty, but also fortunate and with a kind of renewed sense of purpose.” Natalie de Rozario 

The idea of comfort and finding a better life, which underscores many a migrant tale, is a big drawcard and will interest anyone with similar experiences and a big heart. Large scale paintings and portraits in charcoal that take Natalie’s family members but remove scored out rectangles of their faces, mouths and eyes are at once haunting and comfortable. The neutral homely spaces of de Rozario’s grandparents’ home in North Perth where they lived for many decades paired next to the external violence of the diasporic roots of Myanmar. Encapsulating the internal experience of those who have moved to new spaces, but who feel the dreadful push and pull of survivor’s guilt. 

Place is a subject many artists have broached in the 21st century. It’s likely that this rich source of inspiration will not be fading into the distance with voices such as de Roazario’s, as well as her cohort of fellow artists from the Burmese diaspora –  like Aaron Seymour (Boorloo/Perth), Richie Htet (Paris), Gabby Loo (Boorloo/Perth), and Khin Boe (Naarm/Melbourne) –  come to the fore. Natalie de Rozario is a visual arts voice to watch. With plenty of heart and stamina for opening up both confronting and comfortable discussions, her work in many ways speaks to a current vein of thought but with added emotive and historical resonance.

A Bag of Rice for a Saturday Child tours to DADAA Fremantle, 15 May – 12 June. Opening night Friday, 15 May, 6-8pm.