10 artists who use water as their medium

Making a splash, these contemporary artists challenge the gallery’s white cube and create a conservator’s nightmare, but people love to soak up the experience.
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Random Installation’s Rain Room at Barbican Art Gallery

When we imagine artworks that use water, the initial thought tends towards the more conventional, such as the briny, atmospheric landscapes of JMW Turner (he painted more than a thousand seascapes) or Claude Monet’s many visions of the weather-beaten Normandy coast and his sensuous, immersive water lilies.

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Gina Fairley is ArtsHub's National Visual Arts Editor. For a decade she worked as a freelance writer and curator across Southeast Asia and was previously the Regional Contributing Editor for Hong Kong based magazines Asian Art News and World Sculpture News. Prior to writing she worked as an arts manager in America and Australia for 14 years, including the regional gallery, biennale and commercial sectors. She is based in Mittagong, regional NSW. Twitter: @ginafairley Instagram: fairleygina