Free exhibitions are a great way to encounter art, whether it is at your local gallery or a big institution.
Here is a hand-picked list of free exhibitions in NSW this August.
Free exhibitions – quick links:
Sydney: free exhibitions
Anya Pesce: Abstract Fetish and Nemo Jantzen at .M Contemporary (2-23 August)
Anya Pesce creates sculptural relief works from hand-moulded polymethylmethacrylate, a strong transparent thermoplastic. At the heart of Pesce’s work has always been the desire to transform matter and make it malleable for aesthetic and contemplative purposes. Meanwhile, Nemo Jantzen’s solo exhibition presents his latest series inspired by media, pop culture and film, taking neo-pointillism to the next level.
Open Monday to Friday 9am-5pm and Saturday 10am-4pm.
EJ Son: Fountain at Artspace (22 August to 19 October)
EJ Son’s Fountain imagines a metaphorical solution for the ‘constipated heart’ – a term the artist uses to describe a clenched (typically cis-male) soul incapable of emotional expression. In this new presentation for Artspace, 12 bidets face each other in a circular assembly, each releasing a pressurised jet of fluid. Fountain is a monument to tension and release: a place to contemplate an anticipated, spectacular unclogging.
Opening night 21 August 6-8pm; exhibition open Tuesday to Sunday 11am-5pm.
Joshua Charadia: Seconds Turn to Minutes Turn to Seconds at N.Smith Gallery (until 23 August)
Seconds turn to minutes turn to seconds marks a confident new chapter in Joshua Charadia’s practice – one shaped by time, distance, and deep reflection. Developed during and after his recent residency in Berlin, the series expands his visual language with new complexity. Comprising a major suite of new oil paintings and charcoal drawings, this is Charadia’s most ambitious body of work to date.
Open Tuesday to Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday 10am-4pm.
Teresa Baker: Everything I Carry With Me at COMA (until 23 August)
This exhibition marks Teresa Baker’s first solo exhibition in the Asia Pacific region with a new body of work developed across Altadena, the Bay Area, and the Northern Plains of Montana. Baker reconsiders the idea of borders, allowing the perimeter of the works to become the focal point, while the centre transforms into a space for roaming, openness, and possibility.
Open Tuesday to Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday 10am-4pm.
Naminapu Maymuru-White Guwak – the ancestors at Sullivan+Strumpf (until 23 August)
This is a presentation of Maymuru-White’s works on bark, boards and larrakitj featuring endless constellations of stars. A highly accomplished contemporary artist who has been painting for more than 60 years and exhibiting since the early 1980s, Maymuru-White’s practice demonstrates a continued inventiveness in the application of Yolŋu philosophy and art making.
Open Tuesday to Saturday 10am-5pm.
The Story So Far: Helen Britton at Australian Design Centre (28 August to 1 October)
Based in Munich, Germany, internationally acclaimed Australian contemporary jewellery maker Helen Britton is coming to Sydney for this exhibition and the launch of a major new book of the same name, The Story So Far. In The Story So Far, Britton reflects on her early creative influences through a detailed photographic investigation of the house of her late great Aunt and Godmother Kath Carr on the Clarence river (Ngunitiji, Yaegl Country). New works including painting, installation, jewellery, drawings and objects feature in the exhibition alongside the first showing of the photographic work My Godmother’s House.
Britton is hosting a fundraising screening of Hunter From Elsewhere, a feature-length documentary on the artist, on 20 August 6.15pm at ADC.
Opening night 27 August 6-8pm; exhibition open Tuesday to Friday 11am-5pm and Saturday 11am-4pm.
Lyndal Walker: Reflection Unveiled at STATION (until 30 August)
Lyndal Walker is an acclaimed Australian artist whose work challenges gender roles and questions the construction of images. Reflection Unveiled brings together four significant bodies of work – La Toilette D’une Femme, Silk Cut, Artist’s Model, and Changing Room – offering a rich and layered portrait of an artist deeply attuned to the visual and symbolic languages that govern how we see and are seen.
Open Tuesday to Saturday 10am-5pm.
Regional New South Wales: free exhibitions
Exhibitions at New England Regional Art Museum (from 15 August)
Three solo exhibitions run concurrently at NERAM. Stage is an ongoing series of portraits by Michael Simms that honour performers, while Lee Bethel explores the material and symbolic potential of paper in A Way with Words. For Cosima Scales, painting capture the fleeting moments of domestic life in Personal Cinema.
Open Tuesday to Sunday 10am-4pm.
Karla Dickens: Locked On at The Lock-Up (23 August to 16 November)
A ‘lock-on’ is a powerful, non-violent civil disobedience tactic used by protesters–using bicycle locks, handcuffs and other DIY materials–to secure themselves in their place of protest. Honouring the legacy of non-violent protest, Karla Dickens presents her first solo exhibition in Muloobinba/Newcastle for New Annual, a ‘lock-on at The Lock-Up’. Addressing themes of climate crises and ecofeminism, Locked On interrogates the legacies of colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy, and their effects on post-contact Aboriginal experiences and the natural world.
Opening event 23 August 2-4pm; exhibition open Wednesday to Saturday 10am-4pm and Sunday 10am-2pm.
In a Part of Your Mind, I am You at Ngununggula (until 24 August)
The solo exhibition of Tom Polo, this show encompasses painting and installation to explore notions of conversation, gesture and emotional exchange portraiture between the artist and the sitter. ArtsHub gave it a five-star review.
Open everyday 10am-4pm.
Emerging 2025 at Gosford Regional Gallery (until 24 August)
Since 2003, Emerging has run as a biennial art award to support early-career artists develop their practice. This year’s finalists include Luca Anand Leggo, Joshua Di Mattina-Beven, Julian Hamman, Madi Feist, Charles Levi, Tia Madden, Alice Martin and Jacquie Meng.
Open everyday 9.30am-4pm.
