Art Born from Darkness: Jamie Saxe’s Story at Burrinja

There are exhibitions that display art, and then there are exhibitions that bear witness to something far greater.

Portrait of an Artist Awaiting Prognosis, now showing at Burrinja's Lyre Gallery until Sunday 26 July, is unmistakably the latter. Created by Dandenong Ranges artist Jamie Saxe, this deeply personal body of work transforms one of the most frightening experiences a person can face, a cancer diagnosis, into something tender, vibrant, and profoundly human.

We sat down with Jamie on 19 June 2026 to hear the story behind the exhibition. What followed was a conversation about fear, gratitude, and the remarkable power of art to carry us through our darkest moments.

A Diagnosis That Changed Everything

In May 2025, Jamie Saxe received news that no one is ever prepared to hear. He was diagnosed with throat and neck cancer. For a man whose life has long been shaped by two great sensory loves, painting and cooking, the diagnosis struck at the very heart of who he is.

"It changes everything," Jamie told us. Not just the routines, but the certainties.

The treatment that followed was gruelling. Over seven weeks, Jamie underwent 35 radiation sessions alongside chemotherapy. His body was pushed to its limits. His throat, already under attack from the cancer, bore the full brunt of the radiation. Swallowing water, something most of us never think twice about, became an act of extraordinary effort and pain.

Healing One Brushstroke at a Time

Returning to painting wasn't simply something Jamie did to pass the time. It became a form of medicine. A way to process the waiting, and the slow, uncertain path toward recovery.

But this time, the art changed. It absorbed the experience.

Medication bottles, specifically the lidocaine and cocaine mouthwash Jamie relied on to numb his throat enough to eat, found their way into the work. So did bandages. These aren't decorative choices. They are honest ones. Objects that once served a clinical, functional purpose now hold memory, meaning, and weight. They are the residue of survival.

Alongside his abstract paintings, these found objects form a body of work that is both visually striking and emotionally honest. Seeing them together in the Lyre Gallery, you understand that every piece carries something lived.

The Works That Stay With You

Mask of Happiness centres on the green radiation mask Jamie wore during treatment, custom-fitted to his face and bolted to the table to hold him perfectly still during each session. For many patients, these masks become symbols of endurance and anxiety. For Jamie, it became something else entirely. The title says it all: a commitment to finding and projecting positivity even when the experience beneath was terrifying. There is resilience in that choice, and real courage.

One Day Water Will Taste Like Happiness is just as evocative. Its title captures a longing that those who haven't experienced radiation treatment might struggle to fully appreciate. The inability to swallow water, something so elemental, turned a basic act of survival into a distant dream. The painting holds that longing gently, without self-pity, as a marker of just how far Jamie has come.

The Physical Weight of Recovery

It's worth sitting with what Jamie continues to live with today. Cancer treatment leaves marks that don't always show. As a chef, Jamie's relationship with food and taste is deeply tied to his identity and his craft. The lasting loss of saliva means that foods like bread and nuts, staples of any kitchen, remain difficult or impossible to eat comfortably. Recovery is not a clean finish line. It is an ongoing negotiation between the body that was and the body that remains.

That honesty runs through the exhibition. Jamie isn't presenting a sanitised version of his journey. He's sharing the whole picture, the hardest parts included, so that others who are walking similar roads might feel a little less alone in theirs.

A Painter Who Listens to Nature

To understand Jamie Saxe's work, you need to understand how he paints. Abstract, kinetic, and completely instinctive. In most of Jamie's work, the brush never touches the canvas directly. Instead, paint is poured and moved, allowed to flow and settle according to its own logic, guided but never controlled. The result is work that feels alive and organic. Like something the hills themselves might have made.

Living in the Dandenong Ranges, Jamie is surrounded daily by the movement of the natural world, the way light falls through tree canopies, and the patterns water makes as it moves. These rhythms have shaped his practice from the very beginning. Early in his career, he found inspiration in the gestural freedom of Jackson Pollock. Over time, he found his own voice: quieter in some ways, more attuned to the specific landscape and life around him.

The works in this exhibition carry that language, but deepened by what he has been through. There is a particular kind of energy in abstract painting made during illness—a rawness that doesn't perform. When you stand in front of Jamie's canvases, you feel it.

Who Should See This Exhibition?

Portrait of an Artist Awaiting Prognosis will resonate with anyone who has been touched by cancer, whether personally or through someone they love. But its reach extends further than that. This is an exhibition for anyone who has waited for news that changed their life. For anyone who has used creativity to survive a difficult time. For anyone who finds meaning in art that comes from a real and human place.

It is also, quietly, a celebration. Jamie Saxe is here. He painted through treatment and hospitalisation and recovery and all the uncertainty in between. The exhibition exists because he does.

Come and See It Before It Closes

Portrait of an Artist Awaiting Prognosis by Jamie Saxe is showing at Burrinja's Lyre Gallery, 351 Glenfern Road, Upwey, until Sunday 26 July. The gallery is open Wednesday to Sunday, 10am–4pm. Entry is free.

Jamie will be onsite each Sunday throughout the exhibition from 12pm–1pm, giving visitors the opportunity to meet the artist and hear more about his work (excluding Sunday 12 July).

This is the kind of exhibition that stays with you long after you leave. Don't miss it.