Art Almanac August 2025

Culture defines us. It shapes who we are and how we interact with the world, influencing our values, norms, and the way we understand ourselves and others. This cultural identity can play a significant role in the creation and reception of an artist's creative output, influencing choice of subject matter, style, techniques, and materials employed, as well as serving as a powerful medium and tool in prompting interpretation, understanding and conversation. Works on show this month blend autobiographical and shared lived experiences with stories of Country, migration, and everyday occurrences; combine societal trends and self-expression through playful performances and furniture making; stir political debate and raise awareness about social issues, and inspire social change; and capture the beauty of the human condition and natural environment through various mediums, including painting,…

Art Gallery of New South Wales Until 6 October 2025 Sydney Curated by the Art Gallery's head of First Nations, Cara Pinchbeck, Yolŋu power: the art of Yirrkala showcases the artists of Yirrkala in north-east Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, and the power of their art from the 1940s to the present. Presented in partnership with the Indigenous art centre in Yirrkala, Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre, which was established in the 1970s during the land rights movement as an act of Yolŋu self-determination, the exhibition brings together almost 300 works by ninety-eight artists over eight decades, spanning multiple generations and artforms – including bark paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture in both wood and metal, alongside video works and immersive digital installations. Yolŋu power demonstrates how Yolŋu artists have used art for politics…

BIFB From 23 August to 19 October, the Ballarat International Foto Biennale celebrates its eleventh edition. Attracting an average of 40,000 visitors, I ❤ Campbell – a major solo exhibition by British-Ghanaian fashion photographer and artist Campbell Addy – will headline this year's festival. In this Australian exclusive, original paintings, a newly conceived set of photographs and a short film shot on location in Ghana will be featured, each work reflecting a personal meditation on the artist's inspiration and roots. ENNINFUL x MAPPLETHORPE, also an Australian exclusive, is a selection of Robert Mapplethorpe works curated by Ghanaian-born British editor and stylist Edward Enninful OBE, who was Editor in Chief of British Vogue and European editorial director for Condé Nast magazines. Mapplethorpe was known for creating tension between sacred and profane,…

Artbank On Display: The story of Artbank, Australia's most visible art collection celebrates forty-five years of Australia's national art collection and leasing program. The limited edition publication explores the history of Artbank's dynamic program, its impact on the contemporary art landscape in Australia and artworks within the collection. A compilation of artwork images, archival material, client displays and personal reflections from artists, gallerists and clients are featured alongside detailed text tracing the Artbank story – with quotes from artists about their experience of being collected by Artbank also included. Tony Albert says, for example: “My work was purchased for the Artbank collection while I was an emerging artist, which was a really wonderful opportunity for me at that time. For any artist, being part of a national collection gives immense…

“… experimentation with surrealist imagery and innovative photographic techniques” “The monographic survey of an artist's work has its own importance and benefits, allowing us to see their development and growth across a career. But in thinking of that work in a different context – so showing it in conjunction with a peer or collaborator – allows wider insights, and reminds us that no art is made in a vacuum, no matter the discoveries made,” Heide Artistic Director Lesley Harding tells me about Man Ray and Max Dupain, which Harding curated with Emmanuelle de l'Ecotais – Ray historian and Artistic Director of Photo Days, Paris. For the first time, the contemporaneous work of American-born artist Man Ray (1890–1976) and eminent Australian photographer Max Dupain (1911–92) are brought into dialogue in one…

The East Kimberley Jaru painter Janet Dreamer (1959–2021) was a unique image maker. Known affectionately as “Dreamer,” the artist grew up in the 1960s at her birthplace of Old Flora Valley in the east Kimberley near Halls Creek. She and her five siblings hunted, fished and travelled with their elders, learning the traditional ways. Later, she moved to Kirkimbie Station as a kitchen worker and had two children, then to Billiluna Station and eventually to Halls Creek where she joined Yarliyil Art Centre in 2013. Here, Dreamer painted ceaselessly for hours on end. Her vibrantly coloured canvases with their free imagery and sizzling hues bring to life an extraordinary range of flora, wildlife and water life of Old Flora Valley Station, the lush oasis of nearby Palm Springs (Lugangarna) and…