Best free exhibitions to check out in the month of August across Australian cities, metropolitan and regional.
Best free exhibitions – quick links:
Western Australia: free exhibitions
Hatched: National Graduate Show 2025 at Forrest Chase (2 August to 5 October)
Each year, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts’ Hatched: National Graduate Show presents artworks by outstanding graduates from across the country. Hatched 2025 features the works of 23 artists from 20 tertiary art schools who were nominated by their lecturers and selected by a panel comprising Shannon Lyons (artist, Hatched alumni 2005, WA), Tristen Harwood (art critic and writer, VIC) and Gemma Ben-Ary (curator, PICA, WA). Hatched 2025 is curated by PICA’s newly appointed Hatched Curatorial Associate (2025-2026), Mia Palmer-Verevis.
Open Tuesday to Sunday 12-5pm.
Jump Cuts at Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre, Moores Building Art Space (2 August to 8 September)
An exhibition by Irish artist and organiser Kate O’Shea and artist-architect Aideen O’Donovan, with invited collaborators. Long-time friends and creative partners from the southwest of Ireland, O’Shea and O’Donovan bring an experimental, collaborative practice to this immersive exhibition.
Also at Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre are David Shrigley’s Tennis Ball Exchange (4 August to 7 September) and the 47th Print Award (16 August to 21 September).
Open everyday 10am-3pm.
Cathy Blanchflower: Aeon and Eveline Kotai: Road Trip Continued at Art Collective WA (9 August to 13 September)
Cathy Blanchflower unveils a series of new paintings in this exhibition that brings together works from her ongoing Lithic series and those created during a 2025 residency in Bangkok, Thailand. Meanwhile, panoramic paintings by Eveline Kotai trace a journey through the seasonal Karri forests of Margaret River.
Open Wednesday to Friday 11am-4pm and Saturday 12-4pm.
Artist in Print at Linton & Kay Galleries, Subiaco (11-31 August)
This group exhibition features works by Ken Done, Dean Home, Jo Darvall, Dominique Coiffait, Tommy Watson and Leon Pericles.
Open Monday to Sunday 10am-4pm.
Between the Sheets at Gallery Central (15 August to 18 September)
Between the Sheets is an artists’ books exhibition featuring Australian and international artists including Beth Evans, Jennifer Marshall, Lesley Le Grove and more. The exhibition is a collaboration between Gallery Central and Gallery East.
Open Monday to Friday 11am-4.30pm.
TAFE to FAME: 125 Years of Art and Design in Perth at no. 10 Gallery (until 23 August)
From its beginnings at the Perth Technical School in 1900 to the creative hub that the North Metropolitan TAFE is today, this exhibition of works by lecturers and graduates in photography, industrial design and visual art honours the journey and impact of TAFE education in WA. Artists include Julie Dowling, Nigel Hewitt, Brian McKay, Angela Stewart and more.
Open Wednesday to Friday 11am-5pm and Saturday 12-4pm.
My Country Stays in My Dreams at Artitja Fine Art Gallery (23 August to 7 September)
My Country Stays in My Dreams continues the national exhibition program of work by the late Jaru artist, Janet Dreamer. Dreamer started painting at the age of 16 under her father’s tutelage, but it was several decades later after she joined Yarliyil Arts in Halls Creek in 2013 that she started painting in earnest and with her own vision. Her vibrantly coloured canvases bring to life an extraordinary range of flora, wildlife and water life of Old Flora Valley Station in the east Kimberley.
Open everyday 10am-4pm.
KNOW MY NAME: Australian Women Artists at Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, University of Western Australia (until 30 August)
Know My Name: Australian Women Artists is a National Gallery touring exhibition that looks to moments when women created new forms of art and cultural commentary. This exhibition that features more than 60 artworks by artists including work by Grace Cossington Smith, Margaret Preston and Emily Kam Kngwarray.
Open Tuesday to Saturday 11am-4pm.
The West Australian Pulse 2025 at Art Gallery of Western Australia (until 31 August)
WA’s talented young artists are celebrated in this yearly showcase, gauging the pulse of young people who will influence, empower and shape the world we live in. This year’s exhibition features 61 works by 2024 Year 12 Visual Arts graduates from 37 schools across WA.
Open everyday 10am-5pm.
Silence Listening: A Midwest Truth-Telling Exhibition at Museum of Geraldton (until 31 August)
Curated by Bard, Jawi Aamba (man) Ron Bradfield Jnr and George Criddle, Silence Listening explores the colonial histories of Jambinu (Geraldton) and Mullewa. The exhibition features works by two important Yamaji artists, the late Uncle Dr Brian Dodd McKinnon and Charmaine Papertalk Green, alongside British-Australian artist George Criddle. It responds to Charmaine Papertalk Green’s concept of ‘silence listening’ – an intercultural and collaborative process addressing the violent colonial histories that have been actively denied within the settler narrative.
Open everyday 9.30am-3pm.
For a complete guide of Aboriginal art centres in WA visit the Aboriginal Art Centre Hub Western Australia (AACHWA) website.
Northern Territory: free exhibitions
Jenna Mayilema Lee: Of Smoke and Rain at Northern Centre for Contemporary Art (5 August to 27 September)
Of Smoke and Rain marks the debut major solo exhibition of Jenna Mayilema Lee, a Gulumerridjin (Larrakia), Wardaman, and Karrajarri Saltwater woman, at NCCA. Spanning five years of practice, the exhibition brings together new and existing works that reflect Lee’s ongoing exploration of language, materiality, and the transformation of inherited histories.
Open Wednesday to Friday 10am-4pm and Saturday 8am-2pm.
Water: The Artists of Waralungku and Shordi Krik: A Collaboration with the Indigenous Literary Foundation and Barunga Community at Godinymayin Yijard Rivers Arts & Culture Centre (until 22 August)
These two exhibitions highlight partnerships and community. Water is the cumulation of a multi-year project co-developed by GYRACC and the Waralungku Art Centre, exploring the knowledge and artistic practices of the artists of Borroloola. Shordi Krik is a heartwarming exhibition inspired by the book of the same name, featuring original artworks created by students of Barunga community.
Open Monday to Friday 9am-5pm and Saturday 10am-2pm.
Exhibitions at Outstation Gallery (August)
Several exhibitions are opening at Outstation Gallery on Darwin Waterfront. From 1-16 August, exhibitions featuring Turtiyanginari amintiya Purrungbarri – Ochre and Stringybark, Motorbike Paddy Ngal, and Muuki Taylor OAM showcase paintings of First Nations pride in the gallery. The gallery also hosts the 2025 SALON des Refusés exhibition from 6-16 August.
Open Tuesday to Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday 10am-4pm.
Also on in August is Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair (7-10 August) with free entry and the awards ceremony of the 2025 Telstra NATSIAA at Museum and Art Gallery Northern Territory (8 August).
Australian Capital Territory: free exhibitions
Material Transformations and holy arm gauntlet at Craft + Design Canberra (7 August to 20 September)
Material Transformations draws together the work of three practitioners: Emma Bingham, Svenja Kratz and Sarah Stubbs, who explore through the act of making how the body holds and sheds material memories. holy arm gauntlet presents recent work by Kamberri/Boorloo based artist Tom Campbell positioning embroidery as a location for disagreement.
Opening night 7 August 6pm; exhibition open Wednesday to Saturday 12-4pm.
Patternmakers and Hank Reynolds: Remedies at Tuggeranong Arts Centre (15 August to 11 October)
In Patternmakers, Vivienne Binns, Richard Blackwell, Ham Darroch and Al Munro investigate pattern as a fascinating, compelling visual phenomena. Meanwhile, Canberra-based artist Hank Reynolds showcases his creative process as a tool for catharsis and emotional expression in Remedies.
Opening night 15 August 6pm; exhibition open Tuesday to Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday 10am-4pm.
M16 x CAB | 40th Anniversary Satellite Exhibition at Civic Art Bureau (until 17 August)
In celebration of the 40th anniversary of M16 Artspace, the M16 x CAB 40th Anniversary Satellite Show commemorates M16’s legacy of high-calibre studio artists and the thousands of artworks that have been produced and exhibited at M16 over the past 40 years. This show brings together the work of three accomplished M16 Studio artists: Lynne Flemons, Nick Offer, and Madeline Cardone, and Studio alumni Savanhdary Vongpoothorn.
Open Wednesday to Sunday 12-5pm.
Bronte Cormican-Jones and Will Lynes at Canberra Glassworks (21 August to 26 October)
Emerging artist Bronte Cormican-Jones responds to the architectural space of the Smokestack Gallery in this solo exhibition that explores the interplay between materials, space and infrastructure. Meanwhile, artist and designer Will Lynes presents Oily Water, a solo exhibition exploring the historical and artistic relationship between glass and painted lettering, rooted in traditional signwriting techniques such as reverse glass painting and gilding, blending art and advertising.
Open Wednesday to Sunday 10am-4pm.
Light Source at Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National University (22 August to 19 October)
Phenomenological experience of expanded cinema meets the immersive possibilities of light projection in this exhibition, showcasing works by artists including Len Lye, Dirk de Bruyn, Mike Leggett, Joan Brassil, Taree Mackenzie, Ross Manning, Deirdre Feeney, Ellis D Fogg, Pia Van Gelder, Hannah Gason, Nicci Haynes and Teaching and Learning Cinema.
Opening night 21 August 6pm; exhibition open Wednesday to Sunday 10am-5pm.
Queensland: free exhibitions
Geoffrey Schmidt, Barbara Pierce and Gail Mabo at Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts, Townsville (1 August to 14 September)
Three artists present concurrent solo exhibitions. Schmidt’s Neural Architecture follows the artist’s ongoing interest in the human condition, emotional and vulnerable behaviors, meditations on awareness and impermanence, and the disconnect between reality and the mind. Scattered is an installation by Pierce, which composed collected fragments, objects and created artworks to form a tactile landscape dispersed across the gallery walls. Meanwhile, Wer Wer (Boundaries) features a body of work by Mabo that translated repurposed archival mark-making by her father, Eddie Koiki Mabo.
Open Tuesday to Friday 9am-5pm and Saturday to Sunday 9am-1pm.
Immerse: The Dance of Light and the Coming of Form and The Familiar Faces at NorthSite Contemporary Arts, Cairns (4 August to 27 September)
In Immerse, artist Kim Rayner explores the threshold where coastal rainforest meets the radiant light of the Coral Sea. This body of work reflects a deep and ongoing relationship with the northern Queensland landscape – an experience of living within it, observing it intimately, and translating its visual and emotional impact through paint. Meanwhile, Papua New Guinean artist Lesley Wengembo presents a powerful visual narrative drawn from his lived experience in The Familiar Faces.
Open Monday to Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday 10am-4pm.
What Remains Grows at Red Hill Gallery (from 8 August)
Dean Reilly’s new exhibition comprises paintings that “carry symbols, chalices, boats, blades, birds, flowers, not as fixed metaphors, but as evolving fragments in a visual archive”. The artist hopes that “in a time of extraction and forgetting”, the show “becomes an act of care”.
Open everyday 10am-4pm.
Under a Modern Sun: Art in Queensland 1930s-1950s at Queensland Art Gallery (16 August 2025 to 25 January 2026)
Under a Modern Sun showcases the work of Queensland artists and those working in the state in the middle decades of the twentieth century. The display includes artworks by renowned Brisbane-based painters Vida Lahey and William Bustard and luminaries from the regions, including Kenneth Macqueen and Joe Rootsey. The exhibition explores connections between these artists and others – such as Sidney Nolan and Max Dupain – who travelled to Queensland to explore its histories and subject matter and, in doing so, contributed to the development of a modernist sensibility here.
Open everyday 10am-5pm.
New Light: Photography Now + Then at Museum of Brisbane (17 August to 6 October)
New Light: Photography Now + Then is an exhibition where past and present converge in a mesmerising display of photography spanning 1890 to 2024. The show draws on the collection of Brisbane photographer Alfred Henrie Elliott, whose images lay dormant for decades until they were discovered in 1983. Seven contemporary Brisbane photographers will debut new commissions responding to different parts of the Elliott Collection.
Open everyday 10am-5pm.
Light and Land at Edwina Corlette Gallery (until 19 August)
This is a group exhibition curated by Alex Grady who brings together a group of contemporary artists that rethink the practice of landscape painting. Through varied approaches to mark-making and colour, the exhibition explores how artists receive and respond to land and light, drawing on both lived experience and reflection.
Open Tuesday to Saturday 10am-5pm.
Read: Exhibition review: Wedgwood: Artists and Industry, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Victoria: free exhibitions
Melbourne
Darren Sylvester ‘Party up on Skull Rock’ at Neon Parc, Brunswick (1-30 August)
In his latest body of work, Darren Sylvester mines the highly stylised surfaces of contemporary life – its promises, poses, and emotional mechanisms – with a glossy precision that evokes the effects of pop music videos and high-end advertising. Comprising four large-scale photographs, two ‘lightspeed’ paintings, and a suite of sculptures, the exhibition continues Sylvester’s exploration of pop-cultural mysticism and the thin veils of desire, artifice, and identity.
Open Wednesday to Saturday 12-5pm.
Liam Fleming: Glass in Twelve Parts at Tolarno Galleries (2-30 August)
Making his solo exhibition debut in Melbourne, the JamFactory alumnus Liam Fleming has created an exceptional new body of work in glass that explores the aesthetic potential of repetition, variation and colour through simple transitions in form. Riffing on the minimalist rigour of American composer Philip Glass’s Music in Twelve Parts 1971–74, the exhibition comprises 12 large, segmented cuboid forms in kiln-formed, cold-worked and slumped glass.
Open Tuesday to Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday 1-4pm.
colour.field.echo and Danger Danger Danger Danger Danger & Related Works at fortyfivedownstairs (5-30 August, 5-16 August)
fortyfivedownstaris in Melbourne’s CBD is currently presenting two shows. In colour.field.echo, the respective works of Michele Burder, Susan Watson Knight and Amanda Johnson variously contain figurative and abstract elements, often with unconventional and/or high-key palettes. Meanwhile, a solo exhibition of Chelsea Hickman is devoted to the artist’s textile banner project.
Open Tuesday to Friday 12-7pm and Saturday 12-4pm.
Mike Parr: Human Animals at STATION (9 August to 6 September)
Mike Parr has interrogated political and psychological extremes through his practice for over 50 years. Beneath the shock value often associated with his performances, printmaking, drawings, or sculptures lies a deeper interrogation of self-portraiture – one that questions the boundaries of authentic personal and political expression. This is Parr’s first solo exhibition with STATION.
Opening night 9 August 4-6pm; exhibition open Tuesday to Saturday 10am-5pm.
Katrin Koenning: Mirrors at Manningham Art Gallery (13 August to 18 October)
Katrin Koenning explores connection and belonging through a deeply personal and immersive constellation of images drawn from the artist’s archive across time and space in Mirrors. Koenning’s works have been regularly exhibition in Australia and internationally.
Open Wednesday to Saturday 11am-4pm.
ernesto.pees.on.tings at Wurru Wurru Biik (15-17 August)
Here is an unusual one – artist Vincent Ward is hosting an exhibition comprising over 900 prints, most depicting his dog, Ernesto, peeing on things against the background of everyday interactions in Brunswick, Melbourne. Ward’s work won the 2024 17 Union Street Photography Competition.
Opening night 15 August 6-9pm; exhibition open 16-17 August 10am-4pm.
Five Acts of Love at Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (until 24 August)
This exhibition features 12 local and international artists presenting newly commissioned, recent and more historic works across a range of mediums that explore the unexpected and nuanced manifestations of love as an intrinsic action, one that can harness the utmost depth of our humanity beyond pop culture references to romance and kitsch images of love. ArtsHub gave the show four stars, with “the artworks shining like beacons of light in the darkness of difficult times”.
Open Tuesday to Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday to Sunday 11am-5pm.
Rockpools at West Space (until 30 August)
Yindjibarndi artist Katie West’s exhibition Rockpools dwells with the stories of three generations of West’s grandmothers – Wuggi, Sheila and Shirley – and the entanglement of their lives and legacies with colonial expansion in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Rockpools comprises the detritus of colonisation – metal objects scavenged from the tip shops in Karratha on Ngarluma Ngurra (Country) and closer to West’s home in Noongar Ballardong Boodja (Country).
Open Wednesday to Friday 11am-6pm and Saturday 12-4pm.
Protest is a creative act at Museum of Australian Photography (until 31 August)
By facilitating a conversation between women and non-binary artists across the decades, Protest is a creative act confirms that many of the issues addressed by women photographers in the 1970s – around the body, sexuality, race, national identity and the environment – have not been resolved. The exhibition features artists including Brenda L Croft, Kawita Vatanjyankur, eX de Medici and Rosemary Laing.
Open Tuesday to Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday to Sunday 10am-4pm.
Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery (until 16 August)
Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits introduces viewers to Alan Adler (1932 – 2024), who while little known, was the oldest and longest serving photobooth technician in the world. For over 50 years, Adler maintained a fleet of photobooths across Melbourne, most notably the site at Flinders Street Station. Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits features Adler’s extensive archive, alongside additional exhibits and works of art from personal collections.
Open Tuesday to Friday 11am-5pm and Saturday 12-4pm.
Regional Victoria
Changemakers: Crafting a Difference at Yarra Ranges Regional Museum (8 August to 12 October)
Changemakers: Crafting a difference consists of eight textile banners that represent a range of historical and contemporary activist movements. Aesthetically, these works draw on the history of textile banners as artefacts used for activism, including the women’s suffrage campaign, as well as banners displayed in town halls and churches. The exhibition demonstrates that Australian women’s quest for freedom and equality is ongoing.
Open Wednesday to Sunday 10am-4pm.
Janenne Eaton: Lines of Sight – Frame and Horizon at Geelong Gallery (until 17 August)
Janenne Eaton is an eminent Australian artist whose work is critically engaged with some of the most pressing humanitarian and cultural debates shaping our lives today. Eaton’s paintings and installations explore environmental, historical, and political concerns, and the impact of a globalised, digital ecology on the individual, on communities, and on nature.
Open everyday 10am-5pm.
Do You Read Me and Emma Davies: Tethered Threads at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery (until 24 August)
Inspired by American artist Bruce Nauman’s use of text in his practice, and especially in response to the work The true artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths (1967), this exhibition brings together works from the MPRG Collection that use text to convey their meaning.
Meanwhile in Tethered Threads, local artist Emma Davies transforms humble industrial materials into ethereal textile sculptures inspired by the natural beauty of the Mornington Peninsula. This solo exhibition showcases sculptures meticulously crafted from baler twine pressed into repurposed bird netting.
Open Tuesday to Sunday 11am-4pm.
New South Wales: free exhibitions
Sydney
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.
Hermannsburg Potters present Relha Kurrka at ArtHouse Gallery (until 16 August)
Relha Kurrka is an exhibition of new ceramic works celebrating the people who shape, sustain, and inspire community, culture, and creativity in Ntaria. In Western Aranda, the word relha directly translates to “person,” but it holds deeper meaning – often referring specifically to First Nations people. In this context, Relha kurrka carries layered significance: not only are these literal ceramic figures, but they also represent First Nations individuals who hold meaning, memory, and cultural power for the artists and their communities.
Also on view is another First Nations focused exhibition, Where the land meets the sky.
Open Tuesday to Friday 9.30am-6pm and Saturday 10am-5pm.
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.
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
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.
Tasmania: free exhibitions
Greeno: Generations of Cultural Creation and Design and Helen Wright at Bett Gallery (1-23 August)
Highly respected Elders Aunty Lola Greeno and Uncle Rex Greeno showcase their culture and craft in this exhibition, which includes sculptural canoe made out of organic materials, drawings on paper, Pakana necklaces and more.
Helen Wright is celebrated in a solo exhibition with notable works that highlight her artistic practice over the course of four decades, including delicate pieces of wonder and intrigue on paper. Wright will soon have a survey exhibition at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery from 23 August.
Open Monday to Friday 10am-5.30pm and Saturday 10am-4pm.
Loren Kronemyer: Material World at Contemporary Art Tasmania (9 August to 27 September)
Materiel World explores the physical, logistical and social lives of objects via a highly loaded question: can we put it back in the ground? In this ecological fantasy, the artists will attempt to reverse-mine community e-waste for copper, to shoot back from where it came. For over ten years, Kronemyer has used worldbuilding projects including Ecosexual Bathhouse, After Erika Eiffel, Millennial Reaper and Cryptic Female Choice as pretense to learn and teach a range of skills useful to both individual and collective pursuit of survival.
Open Wednesday to Saturday 12-5pm.
Personify: representing the figure at Despard Gallery (until 16 August)
Personify: Representing The Figure brings together seven very different artists whose practices intersect through their representation of the figure. This includes a diverse range of styles and narratives, each proposing unique questions that spark curiosity around the human condition.
Open Monday to Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday 10am-4pm.
How Soon is Now? Bruce Reynolds at paranaple arts centre, Devonport (until 16 August)
How Soon is Now? brings together a selection of Bruce Reynolds’ exquisite cast relief works with two-dimensional collaged linoleum works, to celebrate a physicality that is frequently overlooked in today’s growing digital environment. This is a Museums & Galleries Queensland touring exhibition presented in partnership with the artist, Bruce Reynolds.
Open Monday to Friday 9am-5pm and Saturday 9am-2pm.
Vipoo Srivilasa re/JOY at Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (until 24 August)
A major exhibition by Thai-born Australian artist Vipoo Srivilasa, re/JOY honours and celebrates the multi-layered personal migration stories of people from all over the world who, like Srivilasa, have made Australia their home. In 2023, the award-winning ceramic artist issued a public call-out for donations of broken ceramic objects that held significant meaning for their owners, and for their stories explaining why. From the responses, Srivilasa chose seven pieces and stories that resonated with him to create his striking new 1.5-metre-tall ceramic sculptures
Open Tuesday to Sunday 10am-4pm.
Sam Jinks || Mortal Reflections at Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery at Royal Park, Launceston (until 8 March 2026)
Sam Jinks || Mortal Reflections marks the first major exhibition in Tasmania by the artist. QVMAG has transformed the entire upper level of its Royal Park site into an intimate contemporary art experience. Throughout this exhibition magical figures are held forever suspended within the uncanny realms of Jinks’ sculpted hyperrealism.
Open everyday 10am-4pm.
Exhibitions at Good Grief Studios (August)
nipaluna/Hobart’s warehouse turned artist-run-space has opened a new suite of exhibitions across its front, back and garden wall galleries, featuring Skye Mescall, Etienne Boura, Evie Palmese and video work by Angela Anderson.
Open Thursday and Sunday 12-4pm.
South Australia: free exhibitions
South Australian Living Artists (SALA) Festival (1-31 August)
SALA is an open-access visual arts festival that runs throughout August across the state. Over 700 events are included in the program this year and the vast majority are free exhibitions.
Highlights include 2025 SALA Feature artist Sue Kneebone’s The Last Tide Waiter at Adelaide Central Gallery and Way Too Wild at Art Gallery of South Australia, The Garden of Un/Belonging by Sahr Bashir at Walkerville Town Hall, Got a Light? featuring miniature works by Joshua Smith at Gallery Flaneur and Pukarari: Slow down at Adelaide Town Hall.
Opening times vary; check individual exhibitions for more info.
Mark Valenzuela: Bantay-Salakay at Adelaide Contemporary Experimental (2 August to 20 September)
In Bantay-Salakay, Valenzuela explores the offensive and defensive strategies embedded in our environments, and the role of power in determining whether these strategies represent resistance or oppression. Audiences will enter a hostile environment of spikes, weeds, walls, shards, and noise, in an installation that combines ceramics, steel, timber, textiles, sound, and more.
Opening night 1 August 5-7pm; exhibition open Tuesday to Saturday 11am-4pm.
Zaachariaha Fielding: Ngangkali (Night Sky) and World Expo 2025 at Hugo Michell Gallery (until 16 August)
Zaachariaha Fielding’s Ngangkali (Night Sky) continues his exploration of ancestral narratives and songlines. His paintings pay homage to his inherited Tjukurpa (ancestral knowledge and law) through a vivid palette and expressive use of Pitjantjatjara language. Fielding was winner of the Wynne Art Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2023.
World Expo 2025 featuring Daniel To and Emma Aiston captures the unique moments intertwined with exploring new places and the experiences shared, resulting in a still life scene of furniture and objects embodying magic memories.
Open Tuesday to Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday 11am-4pm.
Ramsay Art Prize 2025 at Art Gallery of South Australia (until 31 August)
The Ramsay Art Prize is Australia’s most generous prize for Australian artists under 40, this year selecting Jack Ball as its winner. Ball’s work, Heavy Grit, was developed in response to a collection of scrapbooks held by the Australian Queer Archives. Check out the exhibition featuring 22 finalists.
Also on view until 17 August is another at AGSA is 50 years of Donald Judd’s Untitled, 1974-75. AGSA regularly presents free exhibitions.
Open everyday 10am-5pm.
Erin Renfrey: Once Upon a Lemon Drop at The Mill (until 5 September)
Once Upon a Lemon Drop is a new solo exhibition by watercolour artist Erin Renfrey. Invoking a sense of childlike curiosity, her compositions encourage viewers to see the world through new eyes.
Open Monday to Friday 10am-4pm.
JamFactory ICON 2025 Aunty Ellen Trevorrow at JamFactory (until 14 September)
JamFactory’s ICON series celebrates the achievements of South Australia’s most influential visual artists working in craft-based media. Aunty Ellen Trevorrow is a proud Ngarrindjeri woman and a prolific, internationally acclaimed weaver with over 40 years of weaving experience. Weaving through Time is a celebration of Aunty Ellen’s unwavering dedication to culture, community and innovation in contemporary Ngarrindjeri weaving.
Open everyday 11am-5pm.
Frank Bauer at Samstag Museum of Art (until 29 September)
Focusing on the sculptural nature of Bauer’s practice, this major exhibition of metal and light works considers matters of movement, longevity, repetition and change – both in an artist’s long career and, more broadly, in our everyday.
Open Tuesday to Saturday 10am-5pm
Ride on, shine on: The East Kimberley Art Movement at SA Museum (until 14 December)
Ride on, shine on: The East Kimberley Art Movement showcases 14 precious early paintings by the founding members of the contemporary East Kimberley art movement of Western Australia, representing the beginnings of what became a major episode in Australian art.
Open everyday 10am-5pm.
