Paspaley has built its reputation on pearls harvested from the remote coastline of the Kimberley, and its 2026 Artist in Residency program has done what the format promises: send an artist into that landscape and see what comes back. The house invited Adelaide-based painter Tsering Hannaford, a twelve-time Archibald Prize finalist, into the world surrounding its Kuri Bay pearl farms.
For Hannaford, known for portraits that register light and atmosphere with near-sculptural density, the pearl farms present a different kind of sitter: the water itself, and everything it deposits.
The residency immersed Hannaford in a working pearl environment, where the rhythm of the harvest meets the particular light of Australia’s northwest coast. The body of work that emerged turns its gaze to the region’s quieter details, shells, pearls, weathered rock, and the shifting shoreline.
The choice is consistent with the house’s long habit of treating pearl farming as a cultural practice as much as a commercial one. Paspaley’s farms operate in some of the most isolated waters on the continent, and the residency converts that isolation into a subject rather than a logistical problem.
The residency follows a pattern luxury houses increasingly use to keep heritage brands alive, commissioning artists to see the source as a place rather than a supply chain. What remains to be seen is how the resulting work travels from the Kimberley to the gallery, and whether pearl house and painter extend the partnership beyond a single season.
