In the Galleries: 14 Art Exhibitions To See in (and Around) Sydney in Autumn

Jess Cochrane: The Middle of the Flower at Sullivan & Strumpf

Impressionism is a clear influence in recent works by London-based Australian artist Jess Cochrane. Each oil painting is filled with symbolism representing her Hungarian heritage. Sunflowers at Corner 75 (2025), for example, references summer and fertility with the recognisable table setting of long-running Randwick restaurant Corner 75. Cochrane says she’s exploring her cultural heritage, family history and heartbreak, which you can feel in I just called to say I love you, an attempted dialogue with a grandfather she’s never met. There’s an oil rendering of the only existing photograph of her grandfather (who came to Australia after World War II and died before she was born) and another of the artist herself, dressed in a suit, which mirrors the pose her grandfather is making.

Until March 21. Free.

Abdul Abdullah: Soft Power at Ames Yavuz

“Live, Laugh, Love”, “The Show Must Go Wrong”, “Fortune Favours the Old”. Clichéd motivational phrases are blown up, exposed and poked at in Abdul Abdullah’s latest solo exhibition, Soft Power. The Sydney-based artist, whose work is held in numerous public collections and who last year won the Archibald Packing Room Prize, plays with reinterpretations of the sentences we utter, or share online. In this series, words are inscribed across photo-realist depictions of the setting sun, a muscular torso, a lightning strike and Japanese politicians in a bust-up, among others. Each oil painting is an invitation to look again at the way we use language and expression to create, manipulate and appropriate identity.

Until March 28. Free.

Ron Mueck: Encounter at AGNSW

Curled toes on an elderly woman lying under a beach umbrella. Ribs poking out under the skin of a young boy crouching by a mirror. Wispy hair on a teenage girl leaning against a wall in her bathers. Ron Mueck’s sculptures are so hyperreal you half expect them to move. It’s astonishing what Melbourne-born Mueck can achieve with silicone, fibreglass and clay. Encounter is the London-based artist’s largest solo exhibition in Australia in over a decade, and it includes brand-new work Havoc – two packs of giant, ferocious dogs locked in a savage moment in time. 

Until April 12. $32–$35.

Data Dreams: Art and AI at MCA

“Is it real or is it AI?” A defining question of today is pulled apart and pieced together in a disorienting way at this MCA exhibition. Artists from Paris, New York, Sri Lanka and Australia (among others) have used the new technology to examine what art is – and who or what is allowed to make it – in an age where almost everything is affected by AI. You’ll see jellyfish-like organisms move through blackness in a video work created with AI, built by artist Anica Yi to mimic her non-AI work. The bigger questions are: how much does any of this matter? And what’s the human and environmental cost? Both are cleverly approached by each artist in their own way, too.

Until April 27. $20–$35.

Sky, Earth, Water at Bundanon

Curled, warped sheets of corrugated iron perch in a grid format at destination art museum Bundanon in the Shoalhaven valley. It’s one of Rosalie Gascoigne’s key artworks, made in 1986, which makes weathered materials seem alive – frozen in motion. The first woman to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale, Gascoigne liked to work with discarded objects, such as old road signs and eroded painted wood, to create impactful sculptures. Sky, Earth, Water displays 20 of her artworks, all on loan from major institutions and private collections. The exhibition also features commissions by three First Nations artists: Lorraine Connelly-Northey’s rustic, metal bush bags dominate one of the gallery walls; a huge woven and hand-dyed installation by Glenda Nicholls evokes the rocky landscape outside; and Janet Fieldhouse’s Non Functional Poo is a playful clay work inspired by cube droppings found around the grounds from wombats that roam the land.

Until June 14. $12–$18.

Rememory: 25th Biennale of Sydney at AGNSW, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Chau Chak Wing Museum, Lewers: Penrith Regional Art Gallery and White Bay Power Station

A giant anatomical heart, encrusted with shiny pearls and red ribbon, dangles from the ceiling at Chau Chak Wing Museum. It’s at the entrance to a room filled with new commissions for the 25th Biennale of Sydney. That includes stunning photographs taken by Melbourne-based Iranian photographer Hoda Afshar and a heartbreaking acrylic poem printed on a large canvas by artist Vernon Ah Kee. The concentration of powerful and complex stories in this room alone is overwhelming, but the beauty of the Biennale is you can take it in at your own pace.

At White Bay Power Station, Marian Abboud’s photographs of veiled women drape from metal beams over old TVs and cars. And Maritea Dæhlin’s looping video of her applying and removing a clay mask captivates. That’s before you see the spectacular 80-square-metre floor canvas by the Ngurrara artists of the Great Sandy Desert at AGNSW. Not to mention artworks and performances hosted at Campbelltown Arts Centre, the Opera House, MCA and other events in Redfern, Marrickville, Granville and Fairfield. Our tip? Explore slowly, one venue at a time.

Until June 14. Free.

Michael Staniak at Station Gallery

AI is a hot topic in art right now, but Melbourne-based contemporary artist Michael Staniak has long explored the tension between traditional making and emerging technologies. It’s hard to decipher which elements of his textured, iridescent gradient paintings and sculptures use hand and digital manipulation. His latest exhibition at Station Gallery marks a subtle shift away from AI-led processes. The show brings together a suite of new works, including a fresh video piece.

From April 11 to May 16 

Old Days, New Days | Arlta-imankinya, Arlta-errama at Ngununggula

Betty Nungarrayi Conway’s vivid depiction of Ilara Creek shows joyful figures bobbing in an aqua creek with a burnt orange landscape. It reflects a moment where families are gathered, sharing stories – a theme that runs through this exhibition in Bowral. Old Days, New Days is an annual showcase of Australian female artists, which started in 2022. This time around, the focus is on the role women play in the family unit. Artists include Thea Anamara Perkins, whose paintings often feature family photographs or familial locations, and Rhonda Sharpe, whose textile sculptures depict pets, animals, herself and others in soft, colourful and sometimes humorous ways.

 From April 18 to June 14. Free.

Nadia Hernández Para verte mejor, en todo tiempo (To see you better, at all times) at AGNSW

Nadia Hernández often works with family and friends, creating textile collages that drape from ceiling to floor with phrases and fragmented poetry that are both political and hopeful. The Melbourne-based artist looks at the complex experiences of the Venezuelan diaspora, and this solo show is an extension of an ongoing body of work centred on themes of migration, exile and displacement.

Running at almost the same time as her AGNSW exhibition, Station Gallery in Surry Hills has a solo exhibition of Hernández's works focusing on the intimacies of everyday life at home.

Until June 21. Free.

The Hooligans at White Rabbit Gallery

Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds (2009), made of porcelain and weighing half a tonne, is one of the highlights of this exhibition of trouble-making, misfit artists – or those considered so by the Chinese state. It’s named for the term used by the Mao-era Chinese Communist Party for the crime of “hooliganism”, used to silence anyone seen as a threat to political or social order. The Hooligans features works by Chinese artists who have dared to defy, including Song Yongping’s With You in Charge, My Heart is at Ease (2016) a busy oil painting that mocks a famous phrase reportedly written by Mao Zedong to his successor. Another is the tantalisingly named The Tiger’s Butt Cannot be Touched (2023) which plays on the idiom meaning some things or people are too powerful and dangerous to mess with.

Until May 17, 2026. Free.

Infinite Scroll at Chau Chak Wing Museum

Raised by the internet? If so, then you’ll instinctively understand the combination of dark humour and deep critical thought expressed by three artists in this free exhibition at Chau Chak Wing. In a disorientating video game, Xia Han uses a looping Mario Kart-style experience to trap players in a thrilling, silly, frustrating and NSFW world. Then there’s Ye Funa’s textiles decorated with sequins and feathers but also smirking faces and scrolls of digitally altered selfies. Every piece in Infinite Scroll parodies the way we present ourselves and consume stuff online. While you’re there, stick your head into the extremely offline exhibition of delightful, decorative ceramics by Glenn Barkley, Kirsten Coelho, Vipoo Srivilasa and others. It’s a tonic to bingeing on all that brain candy.

Until July 26, 2026. Free.

Mike Hewson: The Key’s Under the Mat at AGNSW

Sausages on the barbeque, toddlers playing in the sandpit, parents chatting and washing machines whirring in the background. It feels like a perfect Australian summer, but contained in an underground bunker in the city. New Zealand-born artist Mike Hewson has crafted a playground of wonder at AGNSW, and everyone’s invited to enjoy it – from the figure-eight monkey bars to the fully functioning sauna made from a modular construction shed. Most of what you see here is assembled from salvaged objects, such as the climbing structure made from wooden pallets, sandstone fragments, plastic buckets and heritage steelwork. It’s risky play, for sure, but parents be assured: there’s soft landing mats where it matters most.

Until August 23, 2026. Free.

SEARCHERS: Graffiti and Contemporary Art at NAS Gallery

It’s fast, sticks to uneven surfaces and it makes a statement. Spray paint goes hand in hand with the urgency and often rebellious nature of the street art movement that exploded in 1960s New York. But did you know Sir Sidney Nolan experimented with spray paint? What about Archibald Prize-winner Ben Quilty, usually known for his thick, expressive impasto canvases? In a free exhibition as part of Sydney Festival, more than 30 Australian artists will show the blurred lines between graffiti and fine art at the National Art School in Darlinghurst. Graffiti writers SPICE, MACH, BAGL, LAZY and BREAK will spray a new work directly onto the walls, plus you’ll get to see early works by Khaled Sabsabi, Reko Rennie’s use of aerosol as a decolonising tool, and video works by Shaun Gladwell about reclaiming public space.

Until April 17. Free.

Iconic Loved Unexpected at Newcastle Art Gallery

Further afield, the newly revamped Newcastle Art Gallery has a free exhibition featuring leading Australian artist Patricia Piccinini’s slightly terrifying Nature’s Little Helpers – Surrogate (for the Northern Hairy Nosed Wombat), Nell’s disarming sculpture The ghost on the road will never die, and Brett Whiteley’s almost sunburnt Wynne Prize-winner Summer at Carcoar, his entry from 1978, when he also won the Archibald and Sulman prizes. There are close to 500 works on display – just a fraction of the gallery’s 7000-strong collection – including Joseph Lycett’s Inner view of Newcastle and contemporary sculptures such as Japanese artist Kazuo Yagi’s tactile, tubular Design Plan (Face).

 Ongoing. Free.

Past exhibitions

Clarice Beckett: Paintings from the National Collection and Mirra Whale at Ngununggula

Headlights beaming onto wet bitumen. A woman’s coat flapping in the wind. Misty pink evening sky over St Kilda. Clarice Beckett’s ethereal tonal impressions of suburban Melbourne, captured in oil and painted in the early morning or late evening, were never celebrated in her lifetime – but now she’s considered one of Australia’s leading artists of the early 20th century. A rarely-seen collection of her work, donated to the National Gallery by Beckett’s sister in 1972, are on display at Bowral’s free art gallery. Presented alongside Beckett’s soft, luminous works is a new series by Sydney-based artist Mirra Whale, whose still-life paintings also capture the beauty of fleeting everyday life – such as magnolia petals on a white tablecloth, wedges of bright orange cut melon, or light hitting a carton of eggs. 

Closed January 25, 2026. Free.

Lynda Draper | Glimmer at Campbelltown Arts Centre

Playful, organic, pearly-pink with beady green “eyes” – there’s a shiny tangle of noodle shapes in this survey of Thirroul-based artist Lynda Draper’s ceramics that almost invites you to touch it. Don’t, of course, not least because they’re very delicate. Draper’s sculptural works range from fairy kingdom-like pearlescent palaces to smooth porcelain ornaments of animals. Her four-decade career as an artist has pushed the technical limits of ceramic work, using things like domestic objects or childhood memories as starting points for her textural shapes. Here, you’ll find new works that incorporate glass and bronze for the first time, alongside items on loan from private and public collections.

Closed February 22, 2026. Free.

The Hidden Line: Art of the Boyd Women at Bundanon

There’s something enchanting and transcendent about Mary Nolan’s black-and-white photographs of her children (Alice, Celia, Tessa and Matthew Perceval) on holiday in Europe. They’re clambering out of a tent, brushing their teeth in a stream, picnicking under a tree – a snapshot of a family camping, except in this case they’re a famous artistic family. Mary Nolan (née Boyd) is one of Arthur Boyd’s sisters. The famed Australian painter and his artist wife Yvonne used to live at Bundanon, which is now open to the public as an art museum in Shoalhaven. You could get lost down a rabbit hole of the Boyd-Nolan-Perceval family tree, but to skip to the point: the men in the family have been celebrated more so than the women. Which is why Bundanon is putting five generations of the women in the family front and centre in this exhibition of more than 300 works, including paintings, ceramics, photography and sculpture. Other highlights include Yvonne Boyd’s Melbourne Tram (1944) depicting a wriggling toddler and older child with the most expressive faces, and Celia Perceval’s Tending the flower farm near Dural (1994–95) which feels alive with colour.

Closed February 15, 2026. $12–$18.

Additional reporting by Gitika Garg.