Art Guide Australia

Nike Savvas’ large-scale, bright immersive installations reflect thoughtful contemplation through an atomised three-dimensional painted landscape. Alongside new work, Savvas presents Rally (2014), cascades of colour unfolding through suspended strips that echo the flickering energy of Impressionist brushstrokes, extending painting beyond the canvas and into surrounding space.

Created between Australia and Poland, Cavitation at The Lock-Up is a platform for Izabela Pluta to explore ideas of orientation and migration, considering the waterways that have anchored her life as a state of flux and tension that inform geography.

When Western Australia’s Regional Arts Triennial called on artists across the State to imagine ‘radical futures’, there were no speculative visions of flying cars or technological utopias. Instead, the responses that emerged from 13 regional exhibitions across 2.5 million square kilometres revealed a different vision of the future: one shaped by connection, care and local knowledge.

Were bananas the world’s first fast food? You’ll chew on this question at TAKEAWAY: Tales from the Flavour Superhighway, at Canberra Contemporary. After all, the fruits are highly portable and even arrive with their own disposable wrappers. But it turns out they weren’t always convenient or easy to eat.

News Tamara Dean Wins the 2026 Bowness Photography Prize Tamara Dean’s Metamorphosis (2025) wins the 2026 prize, with honourable mentions awarded to Ingvar Kenne for Termite mounds on Marra Country [Limmen NP, NT] (2025) and Justine Varga for Concussion #1 (2026).

“When I was eight years old,” Sarah Rhodes recalls, “I would spend hours exploring a large room of boxes my parents had never unpacked when we moved house. I was fascinated less by their contents than by the  experience of moving through the room.

The Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh) presents the 2026 Bowness Photography Prize, valued at $50,000. Awarded to Tamara Dean for her work Metamorphosis (2025), the image, using her own body as a subject, is ‘one of the most personally challenging works’. Dean on her winning photograph: ‘Metamorphosis (2025) reflects my fascination with transformation in nature and our place as humans within cycles of growth, decay and renewal.

What happens when artists take charge of publishing their own monograph? It used to be the case that only the Gerhardt Richters of the world got a coffee table book or major catalogue, with trade publishers and museums carefully weighing the cost of expensive paper, colour printing and distribution against the relatively small audiences interested in art.

Among the hundreds of private commercial galleries operating across Australia, Hobart’s Bett Gallery is one of a kind. Located in the city’s CBD, it is one of the country’s longest-running family-owned, multi-generational art businesses. Founded by Dick and Carol Bett in 1986, the Gallery is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a group exhibition showcasing its long-standing stable of artists.

On PICA’s polished timber floor, a car wheel spins endlessly, going nowhere. Nearby, chains turn among fragments of bumper, brake parts, and other automotive debris. One motorised element periodically lets out a heavy mechanical screech. The parts jerk, spin and scrape as if trying to keep themselves going, even as the effort seems to wear them down.