Innehållsförteckning för July/August 2025 från Art Guide Australia

In this fast-paced world we can feel as if we are stones skimming across the surface, relentlessly propelled. Art has the power to slow us, and this issue explores some ways artists practice, and encourage, deeper looking and listening. As Michelle Wang writes, artist Sophie Penkethman-Young dives into the internet’s murky depths, sifting through her findings with absurdist humour. Tara Marynowsky trawls second-hand stores for the film reels and postcards destined to become her creative collaborators. And in the studio, artist Monica Rani Rudhar tells writer Jo Higgins that costume jewellery can embody its own kind of authenticity. As Briony Downes discovers, sculptor Arcangelo Sassolino focuses energy on pushing the limits of materials, while Emma O’Neill explains that the monumental works of Cerith Wyn Evans are drawn from a deep…

Technology has always been central to the work of artists—how they make and what they make—but its acceleration and entanglement with our daily lives today feels unprecedented. We are seduced, dependent and—often—alarmed. Alarmed! But pause on the doom and gloom for a moment. Sophie Penkethman-Young’s internet-based artistic practice offers a healthy dose of absurdist humour and self-reflexivity. A self-described “digital hoarder”, “big reposter”, and “meme truffle pig”, Penkethman-Young dives into the cursed, chaotic and charming depths of the online world to create inquisitive artworks exploring technology, the internet and capitalism where humour is key: “I would feel bad if I was putting depressing work out into the world; the world is depressing enough.” While the medium is her method, Penkethman-Young is cautious about fetishising the technology. Her ability to navigate…

Presented by the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) in collaboration with Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Art Centre, Yolŋu power: the art of Yirrkala highlights artworks from some of Australia’s most renowned Yolŋu artists, as well as newly emerging talent. The show encompasses a variety of themes centred around the Yolŋu people’s connections to country; each individual piece breathes in unison with the whole. A forest of artworks with so much to share. Many of the artworks on display feature clan designs—or miny’tji—from community as well as individual explorations that mirror the deep historical and cultural importance that resides in the hearts and minds of these artists and their families. Miny’tji are sacred clan designs painted onto the body for ceremony. The patterns exist across Yolŋu art as the unifying ‘icon’…

Artisan www.artisan.org.au 45 King Street, Bowen Hills, QLD 4006 [Map 15] 07 3215 0800 Wed to Fri 10am–5pm, Sat 10am–4pm. See our website for latest information. 24 April—19 July The Shape of Time Art Centres: Hope Vale Arts & Cultural Centre, Girringun Aboriginal Art Centre, Yalanji Arts, Pormpuraaw Arts and Culture Centre and MOA Arts. Artspace Mackay www.artspacemackay.com.au Civic Precinct, corner Gordon and Macalister Streets, Yuwi Country, Mackay, QLD 4740 [Map 14] 07 4961 9722 Tue to Fri 10am–5pm, Sat & Sun 10am–3pm. Free admission. 5 July—14 September Libris Awards 2025: The Australian Artists Book Prize 28 June—14 September Neil Binnie: Architectonics and Observations 5 July—14 September Karike Ashworth: Home Bribie Island Seaside Museum www.moretonbay.qld.gov.au/seaside-museum Kabi Kabi and Joondoburri Country, 1 South Esplanade, Bongaree, QLD 4507 [Map 13] 07 5433…

Art Collective WA www.artcollectivewa.com.au Whadjuk Country, 2/565 Hay Street, Cathedral Square, Perth, WA 6000 [Map 19] 08 9325 7237 Wed to Fri 11am–4pm, Sat 12pm–4pm, or by appointment. 28 June—2 August Warm Trees Antony Muia Exploring the searing heat and towering eucalypts of Western Australia’s south west, Warm Trees is a new body of work by Antony Muia. Through delicate layers of watercolour, ink and pencil, Muia conjures dreamlike treescapes where native and introduced animals appear in strange, contemplative tableaux – at once surreal and quietly profound. These evocative works navigate the porous boundary between landscape and imagination, tracing the emotional undercurrents of place. 28 June—2 August The Good Life Mark Tweedie In The Good Life, Mark Tweedie returns to Carnarvon, the coastal town of his childhood, revisiting its sun-bleached…

ROSAMUND BRENNAN is a Fremantle-based freelance journalist and photographer focusing on culture, travel and society. Her work has appeared in publications including The Guardian, The Australian, Al Jazeera, The Sunday Telegraph, Qantas Magazine and Delicious, among others. BRIONY DOWNES is an arts writer based in Hobart. She has worked in the arts industry for over 20 years as a writer, actor, gallery assistant, art theory tutor and fine art framer. Most recently, she has spent time studying art history through Oxford University. TYSON ANTONIO FRIGO works as the curator of Indigenous Programs at the Australian Maritime Museum. He has a passion for creating space and fostering new ways of ‘acknowledging’ Indigenous materials whether it be artworks, objects or something beyond definition. He received tutelage from many great elders and ‘Blakacademics’…

Describe your practice in seven words? Figures, moods, faces, cinematic references, histories, creatures. Your first art love? Painting. I was obsessed with painting bush flowers and Les Misérables posters when I was about eight or nine. My first real art moment though was at Year Four school camp. Arthur Boyd came for a visit with his art materials—the camp was just up the road from Bundanon on the Shoalhaven River. He painted a landscape in [about] 10 minutes with big sweeping gestures. I was shocked: 10 minutes … Who was this guy? He was the first real artist I had met. I took this photo of him and the gang. Much of your work involves collecting and collaborating with items from the past. Where do you source your materials and…

ACAE Gallery www.acaearts.com.au Wurundjeri Country, Australasian Cultural Arts Exchange, 82A Wellington Street, Collingwood, VIC 3066 [Map 3] 0406 711 378 Tue to Sun 10am–5pm. See our website for latest information. 5 July—26 July Ambiguity Ann Thomson, Hu Qinwu, Kate Anderson, Vicki Grace, Tony Scott. Alcaston Gallery www.alcastongallery.com.au 84 William Street, Melbourne, VIC 3000 [Map 2] 03 8849 9668 Thu 12pm–6pm or by appointment. See our website for latest information. Established in 1989, Alcaston Gallery is based in Melbourne with a national and international focus and exhibition schedule. Anna Schwartz Gallery www.annaschwartzgallery.com 185 Flinders Lane, Woiwurung Country, Melbourne, VIC 3000 [Map 2] Wed to Fri 12noon–5pm, Sat 1pm–5pm. See our website for latest information. 12 June—16 August Black Swans Stieg Persson August—October WORD WORK Rose Nolan Art Gallery of Ballarat www.artgalleryofballarat.com.au…

Aarwun Gallery www.aarwungallery.com.au Ngunnawal Country, 11 Federation Square, Gold Creek, Nicholls, ACT 2913 [Map 16] 0499 107 887 Daily 10am–4.30pm and by appointment in the evening. See our website for latest information. We proudly have “Art for everyone”, in a newly refurbished exciting art space. We are glad to have been part of the cultural fabric of Canberra for over 25 years. We describe our collection as rich and eclectic. We represent some of Australia’s finest classical landscape and portrait artists as well as carrying a wide portfolio of stunning contemporary works which sit alongside exquisite works from our Indigenous artists. Paintings, printmaking, ceramics, glass, bronze and sculpture; we embrace the endless diversity of the best of which Australia has to offer in art. Open 7 days and by appointment…

Araluen Arts Centre, Mparntwe www.araluenartscentre.nt.gov.au 61 Larapinta Drive, Mparntwe/Alice Springs, NT 0870 08 8951 1122 Open daily 10am–4pm. 27 June—17 August Saw Points: Pip McManus Pip McManus is a local Mparntwe/Alice Springs artist who has been reflecting on the timeless issues of dispossession and migration. Saw Points encompass a selection of new artworks alongside matured installation from years of refined reflection with outstanding pieces drawn from the Araluen Arts Centre collection. “You will find here a wide selection from my art practice, pieces ranging from silk screened ceramic tablets to multimedia assemblages and recent video works. While often exploring serious subjects, both near and far away, it’s the universal elements of human struggles that most interest me. But this dealing with the dark stuff necessitates a flip side. I take…

Adelaide/Kaurna Country North Terrace: worlds in relief Samstag Museum of Art Until 26 September If you walk from one end of North Terrace to the other, you’ll take in modern Adelaide’s most vaunted sites of cultural and political influence; from Parliament House to the Art Gallery of South Australia, they’re all lined up in a row, where they’ve sat for over a century. “I’ve always been struck by the fact that just within a few blocks there is this configuration of cultural and civic institutions,” explains Jasmin Stephens, a Sydney-based curator and frequent visitor to the city over three decades. Stephens has also learnt that the legacies of this celebrated ‘cultural boulevard’ are far from straightforward. In her 2014 poem ‘Cultural Precinct’, Narungga poet and activist Natalie Harkin laid bare…

The laws of physics allow us to predict with relative accuracy how something might behave. We know gravity will cause a heavy object to fall, at a certain temperature water will boil, and a tightly coiled spring will eventually release in a burst of energy. For Italian artist Arcangelo Sassolino, accurately predicting how an object or material might behave has become an integral part of how he makes art. Starting out as a toymaker, Sassolino initially worked for Casio Creative Products in New York before returning to Italy to work as a marble sculptor in Pietrasanta. From there, his love of mechanics and technology bloomed into his current practice of creating large-scale kinetic sculptures that combine physics and aesthetics. “Even when I was a child, I was attracted by three-dimensional…

There is not much to the standard neon light: a glass tube, an invisible gas and a zest of electricity. Engineered by French chemist Georges Claude in 1910, and first seen flickering outside a Parisian shopfront, its name derives from the Greek neos, meaning ‘new’. An asset in the economy of attention, neon’s strange glow has become central to the architecture of city nightscapes. It is also the main element of Cerith Wyn Evans’ …. in light of the visible at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (MCA). Despite its ubiquity, the artist deploys the material with a poetry that is uncanny, sublime and, indeed, novel. “Cerith is one of contemporary art’s great visionaries,” exhibition curator Lara Strongman tells me, producing work that is at once “conceptually brilliant and profoundly…

Annandale Galleries www.annandalegalleries.com.au Gadigal Country, 110 Trafalgar Street, Annandale, Sydney, NSW 2038 [Map 7] 02 9552 1699 Wed to Sat 11am–4pm. Artbank Sydney www.artbank.gov.au 222 Young Street, Waterloo, NSW 2017 [Map 9] 02 9697 6000 Tue to Thu 12pm–4pm, or by appointment for all leasing requirements.. 3 July—10 August Artbank Window Gallery: barlmarrk: wind, breath, pulse, power. Works from Maningrida and surrounding homelands. Curated by Derek Carter and Alison Cooper. Derek Carter and Alison Cooper, arts workers and cultural liaison officers at Maningrida Arts, have researched the holding of Maningrida and surrounding homelands in the Artbank Collection. They have brought together an exhibition that highlights the most important and culturally significant works in collection. Representing, painting, fibre art and lorrokon, the exhibition draws together various family lines and accounts for…

Bett Gallery www.bettgallery.com.au Nipaluna Country, Level 1, 65 Murray Street, Hobart, TAS 7000 [Map 17] 03 6231 6511 Mon to Fri 10am–5.30pm, Sat 10am–4pm. 4 July—26 July Traversing Greg Wood 4 July—26 July Smoke and Mirrors Locust Jones 1 August—23 August Greeno Uncle Rex Greeno, Aunty Lola Greeno, Dean Greeno, Vanessa Greeno, Charlyse Greeno, Harrison Greeno, Sheridan Greeno. Colville Gallery www.colvillegallery.com.au 30 Collins Street, Hobart, TAS 7000 [Map 17] 03 6224 4088 Open Thu and Fri, 10am–5pm. See our website for latest information. 8 July Online Auction: Estate of Richard King Art photographs and antiquities. 12 August Online Auction: Fine Art Devonport Regional Gallery www.paranapleartscentre.com.au Paranaple Arts Centre, 145 Rooke Street, Devonport, TAS 7310 03 6420 2900 [Map 17] Mon to Fri 9am–5pm, Sat and pub hols 9am–2pm, Sun closed.…

“Ideas are born from a bud. Sometimes they close, sometimes they blossom. When they blossom, it is extraordinary to see how one thing becomes something else, and then something else again, and opens possibilities that were initially obscure and hidden in the deep of the unconscious.” —ARCANGELO SASSOLINO Art Guide Australia is proudly published on an environmentally responsible paper using Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF) pulp, sourced from certified, well managed forests. Sumo Offset Laser is FSC Chain of Custody (CoC) mixed sources certified. Copyright © 2025 Print Ideas Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the publisher. Material may not be reproduced in any form without permission. Information in this publication was correct at the time of going to press. Whilst every care has…