The Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) is hosting Italian artist Paola Pivi's most expansive presentation to date with her exhibition "I Don't Like It, I Love It." Running until April 26, 2026, the show represents one of the most ambitious bodies of work in her thirty-year career, combining long-imagined pieces with major new commissions specifically designed to inhabit the museum's Brutalist architecture at full scale.

The exhibition was conceived through extensive dialogue with AGWA's curatorial team and pushes what Pivi describes as "the entire boundary." The show expands her ongoing investigation of joy, urgency, and the evolving conditions of freedom in today's world. "I am one of the luckiest human beings and artists, given the chance to be able to freely express myself," the Italian artist explains, "something that today we are losing at a perceivable speed."

Throughout the exhibition, Pivi's signature approach of balancing the playful with the existential becomes a framework for rethinking how we inhabit the world. Her fluorescent feathered polar bears serve as a prime example of this philosophy – joyful in movement yet intrinsically tied to global warming, which she deliberately refers to as "global warming" rather than "climate change." These works emerge from what she describes as "respect for life and treasuring movement and the joy to be here."

For Pivi, her artistic approach dissolves the distinction between delight and responsibility. "For me, joy comes from caring about life. It's all connected. There is no separation," she notes. This belief that art expands perception underpins her entire practice, as she firmly states: "I know that art can change the world because art can change."

The largest of the new commissioned pieces is a giant inflatable comic strip cell suspended in the museum's towering lobby. Drawn from an early "Big Nate" vignette by cartoonist Lincoln Peirce, the piece transforms line and paper into volume and air, opening a dialogue about the power of images to catalyze imagination. For Pivi, the cell encapsulates the generative spark that travels between artist, artwork, and viewer.

"All that energy that is stored in this little cell exploded in his Big Nate work worldwide, and it also inspired me," the multimedia artist shares. "That speaks about the power of aesthetics, the power of art." The work transforms the black marker line on paper into black inflatable material, while the white of the paper becomes empty space, creating an impressive installation in the museum's sunlight-filled lobby with its balconies and large spiral staircase.

The second major new work, titled "Love Addict" (2025), features a suspended field of 999 transparent molded resin trays filled with glycerine and colored liquids, installed on AGWA's rooftop level. The installation responds directly to the intense natural light entering the building and reflects Pivi's experience living in Hawaii. "It all came together while I was living there, with the colors and the light – the life of the planet," she comments. The work is positioned in a room with two walls made almost entirely of glass, featuring large windows that open onto the roof terrace.

The exhibition also showcases Pivi's iconic feathered polar bears, which first emerged when she moved to Alaska in 2006. For the artist, their joy and their urgency are inseparable, embodying the tension that runs through her work. These playful yet poignant sculptures exemplify her belief that art can open space for empathy, imagination, and possibility without prescribing what viewers should think.

"I'm not going to tell people what they need to think – I want people to tell me what they think. I hope people will be better than me and teach me," Pivi explains. Her approach to the AGWA exhibition was collaborative from the start, working closely with curator Robert Cook and director Colin to create what she describes as "the most ambitious show we could do, not only in terms of size of the installation or the scope of the production, but also in the decision of which artworks to present to the world today."

The opportunity to realize these long-held visions speaks to a broader principle that Pivi advocates: "The more we are given chances to express ourselves without limitation, the more the world can go forward." In an era where artistic freedom faces increasing challenges, Pivi's exhibition at AGWA stands as both a celebration of creative expression and a testament to the transformative power of art to inspire joy, provoke thought, and potentially change the world.