Across the country, art spaces are blooming with new life this April.
From Bundanon’s meditative reflections on nature to Elisabeth Cummings’ intimate retrospective in Moree, Australian galleries are tracing the connections between land, memory, and material. In Melbourne, Rone invites you into a crumbling fantasy world, while in Brisbane, the Asia Pacific Triennial continues its ambitious mapping of regional creativity. Whether it’s Frida Kahlo’s cherished belongings in Bendigo or ghost nets washed ashore in Tasmania, the offerings are rich with resonance. Here, we gather the unmissable exhibitions on now – from the monumental to the quietly sublime. This is your art guide around Australia this April.
NSW
COMA
Physics of Uncertainty – until 9 May 2025
A new body of work by Mexican artist Jose Dávila that positions industrial elements such as ratchet straps and concrete volumes, along with raw organic materials like unaltered boulders in such a way that they achieve a functional articulation.
Bundanon
Thinking together: Exchanges with the natural world – until 8 June 2025
Bringing together major commissions and works from contemporary artists, this exhibition explores themes of reciprocity, collaboration, and knowledge-sharing between the human and non-human worlds. Featuring artists such as Robert Andrew, Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan, Keg de Souza, the Martu communities, Sorawit Songsataya, and Tina Stefanou, the exhibition reflects on communal making, environmental interconnectedness, and the enduring relationships between people, place, and Country.
Bank Art Museum Moree (BAMM)
In Her Own Time – until 31 May 2025
Celebrated Australian artist Elisabeth Cummings presents a remarkable series of works spanning half a century of her distinguished career. The exhibition celebrates the artist’s bold use of colour, dynamic mark-making, and deep connection to the Australian landscape whilst offering an intimate insight into the breadth of her practice, from her personal life, travels and landscapes.
Arthouse Gallery
Garden of Earthenware Delight – until 26 April 2025
Ceramicist Scott Duncan's exhibition is a pastiche of mid-century design and antiquity where the traditional forms of ceramic practice are reconstructed through his whimsical work. Creating his own chalks and pencils, there is an alchemy at play where low and high fuse together creating forms reminiscent of Italian Bitossi Ceramiche and Scheurich Pottery with ceramic food labels delicately sculpted by Duncan resembling faces adhered across the surface in pareidolian amusement.
VIC
Heide Museum of Modern Art
Blak In-Justice: Incarceration and Resilience – until 20 July 2025
Presenting works by acclaimed First Nations artists, this exhibition addresses the overrepresentation of Indigenous Australians in the criminal justice system and the crisis of deaths in custody. Their powerful responses are shown alongside the remarkable creative achievements of former and current prison inmates, many of whom have connected with their culture and Country through The Torch program.
Bendigo Art Gallery
Frida Kahlo: In her own image – until 13 Jul 25
Presenting an intimate view of one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, this exclusive exhibition features Kahlo’s personal belongings, clothing, make-up, accessories, and medical items, on loan from the Museo Frida Kahlo in Mexico for the first time in Australia.
TarraWarra Museum of Art
TarraWarra Biennial 2025: We Are Eagles – until 20 July 2025
Featuring 22 contemporary artists and over 20 newly commissioned works, this exhibition is shaped by curator Kimberley Moulton’s First Peoples curatorial approach, challenging colonial narratives and disrupting prescribed notions of Australian identity.
Bunjil Place Gallery
Floribunda – until 20 July 2025
Curated by David Sequeira, this exhibition explores the enduring connection between humans and flowers through over 150 works spanning painting, sculpture, photography, fashion, and more. A major collaboration between the National Gallery of Victoria and Bunjil Place, it will features works by international and Australian artists, including Azuma Makoto, Margaret Preston, Akira Isogawa, and Yves Saint Laurent.
The Outsiders Melbourne
The Workroom – until 25 May 2025
This installation by world-renowned street artist Rone opens in Melbourne as part of The Outsiders Melbourne, a ground-breaking exhibition dedicated to showcasing amazing work by artists defying the art establishment. A giant of the Australian street art movement, Rone is renowned for his evocative and immersive site-specific installations that breathe new life into forgotten spaces.
Mildura Arts Centre
Time and Place – until 4 May 2025
Internationally renowned and exhibiting artist, Bruce Munro's physical visualisation of how we recall and often reinterpret memories and moments. The British-Australian artist is renowned for his large-scale light works, and has worked worldwide, transforming landscapes through the medium of light.
QLD
QAGOMA
The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art – until 27 April 2025
Featuring 70 artists, collectives, and projects from over 30 countries, the latest edition of QAGOMA’s Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art brings groundbreaking new works to Brisbane, offering a dynamic exploration of artistic expression across Australia, Asia, and the Pacific, including co-curated projects that reveal rarely seen artforms and cultural contexts.
Jan Murphy Gallery
On surface – until 10 May 2025
A.J. Taylor's latest body of work, On Surface, continues his exploration of the Queensland landscape, from places close to his home in the Sunshine Coast hinterland such as Stony Creek and the Mooloolah River National Park, to trips further afield in Carnarvon Gorge, Lamington National Park and the Bunya Mountains.
WA
Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA)
Form and feeling: artists’ studies of the twentieth century – until 4 May 2025
Bringing together figurative oil paintings and rarely seen preparatory drawings from The State Art Collection, this exhibition examines the central role of drawing in twentieth-century British and Australian art, tracing how artists like Stanley Spencer, William Dobell, and Frank Auerbach transformed preliminary sketches into finished works while shaping the trajectory of Modern art in Australia.
Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA)
Revealed: New and Emerging WA Aboriginal Artists – 15 June 2025
The exhibition spotlights artists at various stages in their careers and offers a rare chance to purchase their work, with all proceeds going directly to artists and their communities, supporting the continuation of emerging Aboriginal artists’ practices. Now in its 17th year, Revealed continues to be the place to see the latest in Aboriginal art.
SA
Adelaide Contemporary Experimental (ACE)
Shared Skin – until 12 April 2025
Shared Skin combines new commissions and existing works by internationally recognised contemporary artists from First Nations and culturally diverse backgrounds, giving thought to familial relationships, interpersonal constellations and their connection to land, society and histories.
Art Gallery of South Australia
Reimagining the Renaissance – until 13 April 2025
Drawing from the Art Gallery of South Australia’s important collection of painting, sculpture, works on paper and decorative arts, alongside key loans from public and private collections, this exhibition explores Northern and English Renaissance art together with that of the celebrated Italian masters to recontextualise these works within a broader art historical tradition and their continuing significance today.
ACT
National Gallery of Australia
Masami Teraoka and Japanese Ukiyo-e Prints – until 26 July 2025
The National Gallery will showcase Masami Teraoka’s ukiyo-e-inspired works, including his Hawaii Snorkel Series (1992–93) and the newly acquired AIDS Series/Makiki Heights Disaster (1988), alongside historic ukiyo-e prints to mark the 30th anniversary of Don’t Leave Me This Way: Art in the Age of AIDS.
TAS
Madeline Gordon Gallery
Lost at Sea – until 30 April 2025
A photographic exploration by Jennifer Dickens of coastal waste resulting from consumption and industry. This series documents a range of plastics, from massive ghost nets to intricate toys.
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
On Island – until 21 September 2025
Borrowing its name from Flinders Island’s local vernacular, On Island explores the deep connections between artists and Lutruwita/Tasmania, weaving together narratives of place, history, and ecology through works from the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery collection that reflect on invasion, industry, and climate within a global artistic dialogue.
NT
Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
ACTION! Film and War – until 1 June 2025
From frontline footage to cinematic retellings, film has long shaped our understanding of Australia’s experience of war. This exhibition explores how Australians armed with cameras have recorded history – whether as a professional duty or personal testament—while also highlighting the role of movies in providing comfort, reframing narratives, and sharing war stories with new audiences.
Araluen Arts Centre
Immerse & Nourish – until 6 April 2025
These energising works from the Araluen Collection bring together Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists for an exploration of water – both surface and subterranean – as a life-giving force, from the soakwater systems of the desert to distant rockholes, oceans, and beaches, offering a sanctuary for reflection and nourishment.
