May has arrived and with it, too many art shows to feasibly attend all at once. But, don't you worry, we'll certainly be doing our best to head to as many of these exhibits and installations as possible this month.

Peruse our pick of the best Australian exhibitions taking place in May, below.

NSW

COMA Gallery

Hendrick’s Presents: Another TIME by Rone – 8-9 May 2026

The show reimagines Australian street artist Rone's celebrated Backstage installation – an extension of the widely attended TIME exhibitions in Melbourne and Perth – transforming the gallery into a layered, theatrical environment exploring perspective, illusion, and the relationship between audience and artwork. It's presented in partnership with Hendrick's Gin to mark the launch of their new permanent expression, 'Another Hendrick's.

AND

Unfolding Fields – 15 May 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

Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2026 – 9 May until 16 August 2026

The must-see annual exhibition of finalists and winners of the 2026 Archiblad, Wynne and Sulman Prizes has become a fixture in our artistic calendar. A single ticket gives you access to see all three of these prestigious awards. And don’t miss Young Archie, a free display in the Kaldor Hall on the ground level, showcasing art by the next generation of artists, aged 5 to 18.

Ace Hotel Sydney

Artist in Residence: Jordan Gogos – May-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.

Sullivan+Strumpf

The Lean – 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.

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.

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.

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.

CASSANDRA BIRD

Layers in Motion – opening 7 May 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

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.

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.

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 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

Two Islands, One Thread: The Art and Cultures of Lombok & Bali – 15 May 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.

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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.

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.

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.