Reworking depictions of 20th Century women and exhibitions that document the body one year apart – these are just some of the highlights from our Australian art and exhibition guide for April 2026.

Whether you're looking for a refuge from the noise of the world, or simply hoping to cast your eyes on something otherworldly and beautiful, we've got you covered with all the best Australian exhibitions taking place this month.

 

NSW

Sullivan+Strumpf

The Lean – 23 April until 17 May 2026

In this new series, artist Natalya Hughes reworks French artist and designer George Barbier's depictions of early 20th Century women, transforming their poised silhouettes into something more physical and unruly. Working at an immersive scale, she fills her large canvases with leaning, twisting forms that feel less like illustrations and more like physical presences.

 

CHALK HORSE

Station Days – until 25 April 2026

Adrian Jangala Robertson's first solo exhibition – in collaboration with Bindi Mwerre Anthurre where he created this body of work – is a deeply personal exhibition that transports viewers onto the Tanami Road, tracing the artist’s childhood journeys through his mother’s Country, Yalpirakinu.

 

Art Leven Woolloomooloo

The Places That Know Us andGatherings – on now

Art Leven opens its new Woolloomooloo gallery with two inaugural exhibitions: The Places That Know Us, a major solo presentation of paintings by Mitjili Napanangka Gibson, and Gatherings, a group exhibition of aluminium and bronze sculptures created in collaboration with Urban Art Projects (UAP), presented in the gallery’s dedicated sculpture courtyard. The program will also include a screening of the short film Nana (2007), written and directed by Warwick Thornton, which offers an intimate glimpse into the life and story of Mitjili Napanangka Gibson.

 

China Heights Gallery

Monument – until 18 April 2026

Paris-based photographer Ellen Virgona's latest exhibition explores the body as a living archive of time. The series presents the same figure across two photographic sessions, one in 2024 and again in 2025, capturing the subject a year apart.

 

Passage Gallery

Centrifugal Love Garden – until 8 May 2026

Renowned Australian artist Patricia Piccinini is popping up at Passage above the old Chinese Noodle House in Chinatown. The exhibition is inspired by her recent visit to a Melbourne stem cell research laboratory, draws inspiration from organoids swirling in centrifugal systems.

 

Newcastle Art Gallery

Iconic, Loved, Unexpected – ongoing

The newly reopened gallery is now the largest public art institution in New South Wales outside Sydney. Upon opening it is presenting almost 500 works from the nationally renowned collection Iconic, Loved, Unexpected, alongside a series of new commissions.

 

Bundanon

Sky, Earth, Water – until 14 June 2026

Bundanon will present a major exhibition of works by acclaimed Australian artist Rosalie Gascoigne (1917-1999), alongside significant new commissions by leading contemporary First Nations women artists Lorraine Connelly-Northey, Janet Fieldhouse and Glenda Nicholls.

 

25th Biennale of Sydney

25th Biennale of Sydney: Rememory – until 14 June 2026

Across multiple locations in Sydney, the 25th edition of the Biennale will highlight marginalised narratives, share untold stories, and inspire audiences to rethink how memory shapes identity, belonging, and the creation and celebration of new communities and connections.

 

Art Gallery of New South Wales

Encounter – until 12 April 2026

This exhibition brings an unparalleled selection of the acclaimed Australian artist Ron Mueck's sculptures exclusively to Sydney. His captivating figures, scaled from the monumental to the minute, embody themes such as birth and death, alienation and togetherness, tenderly inviting us to explore our relationship with the world.

 

National Art School

SEARCHERS: Graffiti and Contemporary Art – until 11 April 2026

Celebrating 20 years of the National Art School Gallery, the exhibition brings together more than 35 artists spanning four decades to explore the intersection of contemporary art and graffiti culture, and the enduring impact of spray paint on both.

 

Artspace Sydney

Event Horizon – until 7 June 2026

After two decades of building a distinctive body of work in the public space, digital platforms and in museums and galleries across Australia and beyond, this is Michaela Gleave’s first major solo Australian exhibition.

 

VIC

Australian Centre for Contemporary Art

This is not the storm – until 14 June 2026

This is the first Australian solo exhibition by Berlin-based artist Julius von Bismarck, spanning more than two decades of work – much of it never before seen in Australia. The exhibition brings together a range of experiential mediums, exploring how we perceive and construct “nature”.

 

TarraWarra Museum of Art

TarraWarra International series: System Release – until 5 July 2026

This exhibition brings together ten artists from Aotearoa/New Zealand, Australia and Mexico who reach into the chaos of global precarity to create new systems of order across a wide range of media. They proposes a different understanding of order as a kind of friendship with
chaos, presenting personal and collective strategies for making sense of a rapidly changing world.

 

National Centre for Environmental Art

Entanglements with Fungi: Life, Death and Renewal – until 1 June 2026

This exhibition brings together a group of multidisciplinary artists who explore the Kingdom Fungi, a mysterious underworld that acts as the bridge between interspecies life.

 

Buxton Contemporary

Stone Soup – until 11 April 2026

A major solo exhibition by internationally acclaimed sculptor Hany Armanious. He is celebrated for his inventive and often playful approach to sculpture, inviting audiences to experience ordinary objects anew. Drawing from the everyday, he recasts found objects in resin at a 1:1 scale, with meticulous attention to colour, texture and form, while allowing subtle imperfections to remain visible.

 

NGV

Westwood | Kawakubo – until 19 Apr 2026

This major international exhibition pairs the work of two of the most visionary and influential fashion designers in recent history, Vivienne Westwood (1941–2022) and Rei Kawakubo (1942–) of Comme des Garçons.

 

Heide Museum of Modern Art

John Perceval: All That We Are – until 12 July 2026.

The exhibition brings together more than 100 works spanning three decades from John Perceval – an iconic Australian artist and key member of the Heide Circle – drawn from significant public and private collections, including several rarely seen masterpieces (including a rare collection of 25 ceramic angels and an award-winning but little-known 1962 animated film featuring the angels, directed by Tim Burstall).

 

Potter Museum of Art

A velvet ant, a flower and a bird – until 6 June 2026

The University of Melbourne’s Potter Museum of Art will present an ambitious new exhibition curated by internationally renowned curator Chus Martínez. The exhibition brings together works from the University of Melbourne’s Classics, Biology, and Art collections, alongside new commissions and performances by acclaimed artists from Australia and abroad.

 

Bunjil Place Gallery

The Offbeat Sari – until August 2026

A landmark international exhibition celebrating the sari – one of the world’s most worn garments. It brings together 54 groundbreaking saris on loan from leading global designers and emerging studios across India, in a large-scale exploration of the contemporary Indian and South Asian fashion staple.

 

QLD

Home of the Arts (HOTA)

Aka Sorbie: Saltwater Heart – until 16 August 2026

First Nations artist and designer Lisa Sorbie Martin's immersive project opens at the Children’s Gallery exhibition, inviting families to gather, explore and connect through art, culture and storytelling. The exhibition offers engaging and sensory hands-on experiences where visitors can immerse themselves in an underworld ocean of coral and fish, play cubby house in the island hut with Lisa’s fabrics, explore patterns in nature, and make art at Aka Sorbie’s table.

 

Museum of Brisbane

Warrajamba – until 15 November 2026

Quandamooka artist Delvene Cockatoo-Collins will reimagine Museum of Brisbane's Creative Space into an interactive and immersive realm, exploring the ancestral story of Warrajamba, the mermaid.

 

Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA)

Presence – until 12 Jul 2026

Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson invites you on an expansive, multi-sensory journey that engages our sense of perception. Choose your path through a primordial landscape, encounter moments that heighten awareness and envision the future form of our city. This Brisbane-exclusive exhibition draws from the three‑decade career of one of the world’s most influential living artists.

 

19 Karen Contemporary Artspace

Two of a Kind International Group Show – until 30 June 2026

The Two of a Kind International group show features 58 new works by thirty emerging artists identified by the gallery's director as ones to watch. Each artist was invited to create two pieces representing their current style.

 

SA

AGSA

2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Yield Strength – until 8 Jun 2026

This exhibition reveals how materials, selfhood and society are tested - and transformed – under pressure. Twenty-four artists push their mediums to build visual complexity, or contort them to convey the curious side of existence.

 

WA

PICA

Soft Grates – until 20 December 2026

Jen Berean and James Carey’s Soft Grates is the fourth in the Judy Wheeler Commission series and invites visitors to contemplate how institutions mark time and hold memory through the presence of water. Continuing their collaborative exploration of architecture, infrastructures and embedded systems, the duo aims to reveal the unseen networks that move water through and around PICA’s location in Boorloo (Perth).

 

NT

MAGNT Darwin

Tiny Territory – on now

This ongoing exhibition at MAGNT makes large and wondrous the small, colourful and alien-like invertebrates of the Northern Territory. Invertebrates in the Top End are the most numerous and important ecosystem engineers, service providers and waste managers.

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ACT

National Gallery of Australia (NGA)

5th National Indigenous Art Triennial: After the Rain – until 27 April 2026

This exhibition features 10 large-scale, immersive and multidisciplinary installations that celebrate intergenerational legacies and cultural warriors of the past, present and future.

 

Canberra Contemporary

DEEP END – until 12 April 2026

Deep End is an immersive sensory installation by Amy Claire Mills that invites exploration through touch, sight, and sound. The project explores the concept of accessible and adaptive ‘third spaces’.

 

TAS

Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery

Restoring the Past – until 31 May 2026

This captivating exhibition offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at the conservation of three remarkable 19th-century paintings and their ornate frames, revealing the delicate balance between science, artistry, and storytelling. Made possible through the support of the Keith Clarke Foundation, it invites visitors to explore the hidden layers of Tasmania’s artistic heritage.

 

Dada Muse

Dante's Divine Comedy – ongoing

A complete suite of 100 authentic water-colour works on paper by Salvador Dali, based on Dante Alighieri's literary classic of the same name. Over 3500 woodblock carvings are said to have been used in the printing process.

 

Art Gallery at Royal Park

Mortal Reflections – until 31 May 2026

Marking the first major exhibition in Tasmania by Sam Jinks, this is a rare opportunity for audiences to encounter a collection of sculptures not typically accessible to the public. QVMAG has transformed the entire upper level of its Royal Park site, where magical figures are held forever suspended within the uncanny realms of Jinks’ sculpted hyperrealism.