Revealing references to both Eastern and Western traditions, contemporary Australian artists Natalya Hughes, Rosslynd Piggott and Marion Borgelt focus on colour and line, shape and symmetry, pattern and texture in their work.

Natalya Hughes draws on the lush imagery of ukiyo-e woodblock prints of Edo period Japan (1615–1868) and art nouveau designs of nineteenth-century British artist Aubrey Beardsley to portray human bodies. Hughes implies their presence by playing on our familiarity with the way volumes of cloth are depicted through shape, line and shifting pattern.