There's nothing better than escaping a blustery winter's day with a trip to within the serenity of four art gallery walls. The hum of daily life seems to stop for a moment, order is uncannily restored, and all we are asked to do is sit or stand in silent introspection – enjoying what has been crafted for our eyes by the hands of some very talented people.
If you – like us – are eager to spend more time indoors now that it's officially winter, then look no further. Below, we've curated our list of the must-see art exhibitions happening across Australia this June.
NSW
THE EVE Hotel
Art House – until September 2026
This winter, The EVE Hotel launches Art House – a cultural platform that transforms the hotel into a living gallery. Running from 28 May through to September, Art House will unfold across an installation of new works by acclaimed Australian artist and Dinosaur Designs co-founder Louise Olsen. Eight new paintings – courtesy of Olsen Gallery – and Dinosaur Designs objects will be placed in Bar Julius, the lobby and cloisters, and a Design Dialogue talk hosted with Arts-Matter will take place on 2 July in Bar Julius.
Ngununggula
New Religion – from 27 June until 18 October 2026
A group exhibition bringing together contemporary Australian works, new commissions, and major historical works to explore how symbols of faith persist, evolve, and outlive belief. The exhibition asks why certain images continue to hold
meaning and what forms of authority they retain after systems of devotion have shifted.
Newcastle Art Gallery
The Mordant Family Gift – until 8 November 2026
Presents 25 works across paintings, photography, textiles, installations, prints and sculptures by Australian and international artists Ian Abdulla, María Fernanda Cardoso, Brent Harris, Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro, Janet Laurence, Hiroyuki Kita, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Jamie North, Raquel Ormella, Sangeeta Sandrasegar, Tim Silver, Gemma Smith, Yuken Teruya, Brendan Van Hek and John Young. The exhibition celebrates the significance of the gift, the largest number of works the Mordant Family have ever gifted to one institution, and marks the first time these works will be presented collectively to the public.
China Heights
Orbits – until 13 June 2026
A group exhibition featuring Emmeline Joy Morris, Dan Mitchell, Daniel Octoriver and Mim Libro. The show takes cues from Frank Frazetta, HR Giger, and the counter culture surrealism of Alexandro Jodorowsky. Dan Mitchell's paintings establish the backdrop. Mim Libro's airbrushed characters supply the cast. Emmeline Joy Morris's ceramic armour provides protection. Daniel Octoriver's graphic compositions offer a kind of map for navigating the exhibition and its imagined territories.
CHALK HORSE
Level Two – until 21 August 2026
CHALK HORSE marks its gallery expansion with a new, major group exhibition spanning both floors of its William Street building. Level Two comprises the gallery’s entire stable of artists, along with four guest artists: Omar Musa, Arm Wantaya and Kohl Tyler.
MCA
Not a Souvenir – until 19 October 2026
Tony Albert – one of Australia’s most fearless and influential contemporary artists – stages his newest major exhibition exclusively to Sydney. The show will feature works across sculpture, photography, installation, painting and assemblage alongside major new commissions.
COMA Gallery
Unfolding Fields – until 27 June 2026
Eleanor Louise Butt's first solo presentation at COMA shows a new body of work shaped by memories of the garden she grew up in on Wurundjeri Country in Upwey. Yet these are not literal depictions of gardens. Each painting is its own unfolding world, inviting viewers to step inside, move with it, and inhabit the space of the canvas.
Art Gallery of NSW
Avatar: Forms of Vishnu – 20 June – 5 October 2026
This captivating exhibition brings together centuries of art and storytelling from South and Southeast Asia celebrating Vishnu, the Hindu deity who preserves order in the universe. It's also accompanied by a richly illustrated publication featuring essays by writers from across the globe.
Ace Hotel Sydney
Artist in Residence: Jordan Gogos – until July 2026
Multidisciplinary artist and fashion designer Jordan Gogos – who was in residence at Ace Hotel Sydney during April 2026 will present an exhibition at Ace Hotel Sydney from May-July 2026. The founder and Creative Director of the Iordanes Spyridon Gogos label, Jordan employs industrial techniques to create wearable art and structural pieces reflective of his boundless energy and bold creativity.
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.
Ngununggula
Old Days, New Days | Arlta-imankinya, Arlta-errama – until 14 June 2026
The exhibition explores the vital role women play within family and community life across generations. Featuring existing and newly commissioned paintings, sculptures, video works, textiles, and works on paper, Old Days, New Days celebrates the daily contributions women make to their communities, through acts of gathering, care, and storytelling that are both deeply personal and collectively sustaining.
CASSANDRA BIRD
Layers in Motion – until 17 June 2026
A solo exhibition by Paul Davies, marking the artist’s second exhibition with the gallery and his first solo presentation in Sydney in five years. Bringing together an immersive installation, a new series of paintings, and dynamic bronze sculptures, the exhibition offers a compelling articulation of Davies’ engagement with process, material, and the spatial conditions of image making.
National Art School
Artist’s Mouth – until 11 July 2026
This exhibition celebrates Archibald Prize-winning artist, Mitch Cairns over an incredible 20-year career, since graduating from NAS in 2006. It features some 48 works, including his 2017 Archibald Prize-winning portrait of partner and fellow artist Agatha Gothe-Snape.
VIC
C. Gallery
IF YOU CAN'T SEE THIS YOU MIGHT BE DEAD OR JUST NOT HERE – until 16 July 2026
Ben Mazey stages two human-scale bronze totems that possess a character straddling court jester and gate guard. He also introduces his first foray into terracotta and expands on his flag series with a newly developed complex glaze that augments a pull-and-stretch effect across their wave-like bends.
MARS Gallery
Polaroid Polaroid Polaroid – from 20 June until 11 July 2026
This exhibition aims to raise funds for Living Positive Australia (LPV) by bringing together a snapshot of the MARS community, open not only to artists but also to art enthusiasts. Hundreds of Polaroids will fill the walls of MARS to support the important work behind Living Positive Australia. Works will be for sale, with the funds being donated to LPV, with the price decided by what they can afford to pay. These donations will directly support people living with HIV, as well as fund programs to help them connect with the community.
Buxton Contemporary
Poetry goes no further than language: A historical moment of art becoming art again – until 3 October 2026
The University of Melbourne's Buxton Contemporary has unveiled a major new exhibition exploring the emergence of conceptualism in China. Curators Carol Yinghua Lu, Director of Beijing's Inside-Out Art Museum, and artist Liu Ding, have brought together the entire body of work by Beijing-based artist collective New Measurement Group (1989–95), as well as a selection of works by Shanghai-based conceptual artist Qian Weikang (active 1990–95).
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.
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)
This Moment: Highlights from the White Rabbit Collection of Chinese Contemporary Art – until 11 October 2026
Presenting key works from the White Rabbit Collection, one of the world’s most significant and influential holdings of contemporary Chinese art, this extraordinary exhibition features bold, experimental artworks produced over the last 25 years that interrogate authority, reclaim history and reflect profound social change.
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 July 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
Two Islands, One Thread: The Art and Cultures of Lombok & Bali – until 11 October 2026
The first exhibition in Australia to explore the remarkable artistic and cultural connections between two distinct Indonesian societies – Muslim Lombok and Hindu Bali. Through rarely-seen textiles, drawings, paintings and objects, Two Islands, One Thread reveals how centuries of maritime contact, trade and migration across the Lombok Strait has shaped both islands’ artistic traditions while preserving their unique cultural identities.
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.
ACT
National Gallery of Australia (NGA)
Steve – until 12 July 2026
Richard Lewer’s Steve is a gentle exploration of a family coming to terms with a dementia diagnosis. An animated film comprising thousands of paintings tells the story of Steve and his family as they cope with the impact of his illness and the changes to their lives.
Canberra Contemporary
BLAZE – until 20 June 2026
The exhibition returns in 2026 with an exciting line up of emerging artists based in the Kamberri/Canberra region and beyond. Working across diverse mediums spanning ceramics, painting, sculpture, glass, textiles, printmaking, video and installation, the 8 artists in BLAZE signal an exciting direction in contemporary visual arts practices today.
TAS
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.
Bett Gallery
After the Earth – until 12 June
This exhibition brings together six Australian artists whose practices engage the land as something shaped, mediated, and transformed. Across painting, ceramics, collage and photography, these works move between material and image – tracing how the earth can be constructed, suspended, eroded, and reimagined.
Looking for more ways to fill your month? Here's our guide to everything taking place across Australia in May, from restaurant openings to sample sales.
