September is one of the country's most exciting months for the arts. Headlining the month is of course the annual Sydney Contemporary art fair, held at Carriageworks and now in its 10th year. Elsewhere, there are major surveys and career-spanning retrospectives, new commissions exploring everything from mythology to material innovation, and exhibitions turning their attention to identity, Country, climate and First Nations futures.
From Tracey Moffatt’s newly opened archive in Sydney and Angela Tiatia’s landmark Newcastle survey to Desert Mob in Mparntwe and David Hockney in Canberra, there’s plenty worth travelling for. Here's what's happening in art this September:
NSW
Sydney Contemporary
10th Edition – 3–6 September 2026
Australasia’s leading contemporary art fair returns to Carriageworks for its 10th edition, bringing together more than 100 galleries from nine countries and work by over 500 artists. Beyond the booths, this year’s program spills across Sydney with large-scale public installations, alongside artist talks, live performances, panel discussions and plenty to discover for seasoned collectors and curious newcomers alike.
Newcastle Art Gallery
Angela Tiatia: Muse – 26 September 2026–7 February 2027
The first major Australian survey of Sāmoan/Australian artist Angela Tiatia brings together two decades of moving image, photography, performance and installation, tracing how she has used everything from ancient mythology to selfie culture to explore gender, power and representations of the Pacific. It’s joined by The Matildas 2025, her 23-minute video portrait of all 23 players from Australia’s history-making 2023 World Cup squad. This exhibition opens from 5pm on Friday 25 September alongside New Annual 2026, with priority access given to Angela Tiatia: Muse ticketholders. Visit the FIRST NIGHT ART PARTY event page for opening night tickets and lineup details including powerhouse future soul singer Ngaiire leading a night celebrating Pasifika creativity.
Art Gallery of NSW
ສູ້ສູ້ Sou Sou – until 1 February 2027
Acclaimed Sydney artist Mechelle Bounpraseuth has a landmark presentation at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, featuring around 150 works for 12-months, where her immersive installation celebrated Lao culture, ritual and intergenerational storytelling through large-scale ceramic works.
Butterwood Ranch
En Plein Air – inaugural winter exhibition 2026
This exhibition transforms a Northern Rivers guesthouse into a lived-in gallery, where six local artists explored the poetics of place through landscape, feeling and the beauty of the wilds. Curated by Olivia Drake, the intimate afternoon unfolded from a tea ceremony by Nirmala Temple through art-filled rooms and into a flower-dressed tablescape by The Flower Bar.
COMA
Pentimento – until 3 October 2026
This exhibition of paintings and ceramics explores identity as something layered rather than fixed, with Justin Williams using his own body to inhabit figures from history, family and personal mythology – creating portraits that are almost, but never quite, himself.
UNSW Galleries
The Forests of Symbols – from 3 September until 22 November 2026
Heather B. Swann’s latest exhibition draws you into a strange and fantastical world of mythology, folklore and symbolism, where owls, frogs, caves and the folkloric ‘green man’ recur across new paintings, sculptures and lithographs. Created as a major new commission, the exhibition plays with the idea that even the most ordinary objects can carry hidden histories and meanings.
Ngununggula
New Religion – 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.
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.
VIC
Heide Museum of Modern Art
Brassaï: Secret Paris – until 15 November 2026
The most comprehensive exhibition of Brassaï's work ever presented in Australia, Brassaï: Secret Paris brings together more than 150 original vintage prints capturing the streets, nightlife and creative circles of 1930s Paris. From iconic nocturnal scenes and portraits of Pablo Picasso to surrealist experiments and pioneering photographs of graffiti, the exhibition offers a rare insight into one of the twentieth century's most influential photographers.
National Gallery of Victoria (NGV)
Plant Life: The Nature of Design – until 7 February 2027
There’s furniture grown from fungal networks, bioplastics that turn pink in UV light and even a jacket made from mycelium leather, offering a pretty fascinating look at what we might make things from once we move beyond petrochemicals.
National Gallery of Victoria (NGV)
Margaret Preston – until 31 January 2027
This retrospective looks at Margaret Preston’s defining influence on Australian modernism, bringing her work into conversation with her contemporaries and artists responding to her complicated legacy today.
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).
Potter Museum of Art
Ngarn Wa’ngal: Art of the gum tree – until 21 November 2026
Exploring the enduring significance of Australia's iconic gum tree, Ngarn Wa’ngal: Art of the gum tree brings together more than 175 works spanning First Nations, colonial, twentieth-century and contemporary art. Alongside five major new commissions, the exhibition considers the eucalypt as a powerful symbol of Country, identity, ecology and cultural memory across generations.
C. Gallery
TEXTILIS COMPLICARE – until 10 October 2026
This exhibition of large-scale sculptural textiles explores the parallels between weaving and geology, with Jennifer Robertson translating the folds, layers and shifting forms of the Earth into works woven from unexpected materials including quartz, basalt, titanium and carbon fibre.
Shepparton Art Museum
Archibald Prize 2026 – from 5 September until 1 November 2026
Australia’s most famous portrait prize heads to Shepparton for its only Victorian stop, bringing all 59 finalist works together outside Sydney for the first time this year – including Richard Lewer’s winning portrait and a snapshot of the artists, thinkers and cultural figures shaping Australia right now.
QLD
Queensland Art Gallery
kith and kin – from 27 September 2025 until 18 October 2026
Archie Moore traces his own Kamilaroi and Bigambul relations over 65,000+ years, creating an extensive drawing that captures the common ancestors of all humans alongside animals, plants, waterways and landforms in order to emphasise our kinship responsibilities to each other and our surroundings.
Rockhampton Museum of Art
Tarnanthi on Tour: Too Deadly – until 5 October 2026
Celebrating ten years of the Art Gallery of South Australia's acclaimed Tarnanthi festival, Tarnanthi on Tour: Too Deadly brings together more than 30 works by contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists. Featuring monumental paintings, installations and moving image works, the exhibition showcases the diversity, innovation and cultural depth of First Nations art through works by leading artists including Reko Rennie, Judy Watson and Tony Albert.
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.
SA
Art Gallery of South Australia
James Tylor: Turrangka…in the shadows and CIPX Kaurna Miyurna (Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange with the Kaurna Community) – until 1 November 2026
Bringing together the work of Kaurna artists James Tylor and Damien Shen, this powerful presentation explores Kaurna history, identity and cultural continuity through photography, portraiture and reclaimed visual narratives. Spanning a major survey of Tylor's decade-long practice alongside newly commissioned tintype portraits of Kaurna Elders, cultural leaders and community members, it offers a moving reflection on Country, memory and the importance of First Nations self-representation.
Art Gallery of South Australia
Monet to Matisse: Defying Tradition – until 8 November 2026
An Australian-exclusive exhibition bringing 57 masterworks from Ohio's Toledo Museum of Art to Adelaide, Monet to Matisse: Defying Tradition traces the radical evolution of modern art from Impressionism through to Abstract Expressionism. Featuring iconic works by Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian and Helen Frankenthaler, the exhibition explores how successive generations of artists challenged convention and reshaped the visual language of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Adelaide Contemporary Experimental
LEAVES: ECO-ANXIETY – from 11 September until 5 December 2026
Rather than looking only at the physical consequences of climate change, this group exhibition turns to what it’s doing to us psychologically – exploring anxiety, grief and uncertainty alongside the ways we might imagine living differently with the natural world.
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).
Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA)
Chivalry is dead? – 5 September 2026–21 February 2027
Taking the familiar question of whether chivalry is dead as its starting point, this exhibition looks at how ideas of romance, gender, power and social behaviour have shifted over time – and what those old codes might mean in contemporary life.
Holmes à Court Gallery
Time to Burn – 19 September–31 October 2026
Twelve artists turn their attention to fire and the Western Australian landscape, exploring the complicated practice of prescribed burning and the cultural, ecological and political questions surrounding how we manage Country.
Stala Contemporary
Rose Moxham: Nervous Pastorals – until 12 September 2026
Queensland artist Rose Moxham presents new paintings exploring landscape and the uneasy relationship between humans and the natural environment.
NT
Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA) – until 25 January 2027
Australia's longest-running and most prestigious First Nations art prize returns with a powerful exhibition showcasing the work of emerging and established Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists. Spanning painting, sculpture, weaving, photography and installation, the exhibition offers a compelling snapshot of contemporary Indigenous art from across the country.
Darwin Visual Arts
Echoes of the Earth and Soul – 4–26 September 2026
Through portraiture and abstract landscapes, Darwin-based artists Renata Robinson and Dorothea Janczewska explore migration, belonging and their relationships with the Northern Territory – looking at how a place gradually becomes home.
Midpul Art Gallery
Salon des Refusés – until 26 September 2026
Presented alongside the Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, Salon des Refusés celebrates outstanding works submitted but not selected for the award. Featuring artists from remote art centres across Australia, the exhibition highlights the breadth, diversity and innovation of contemporary First Nations practice.
Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs
Desert Mob 2026 – from 10 September until 25 October 2026
One of the country’s most significant celebrations of Aboriginal art returns to Mparntwe/Alice Springs, bringing together new work from emerging and established artists connected to 35 Aboriginal art centres across the NT, SA and WA.
ACT
Canberra Contemporary
2026 Members Show – until 13 September 2026
A showcase of emerging and established ACT artists spanning painting, photography, sculpture, textiles and installation. It's one of the best ways to discover new local talent.
National Gallery of Australia
David Hockney: Portraits in Print – 5 September 2026 until 9 May 2027
David Hockney’s portraits take centre stage in this exhibition devoted to his printmaking, tracing the friends, lovers and cultural figures he has returned to across his career and the remarkably intimate way he captures the people within his orbit.
Canberra Contemporary
TAKEAWAY: Tales from the Flavour Superhighway – 12 September–24 October 2026
Food becomes a way into much bigger conversations in this seven-artist exhibition, where the things we grow, cook, eat and discard open up questions around colonisation, cultural exchange, food sovereignty, ecology and waste.
TAS
Museum of Old and New Art (Mona)
In Absence – ongoing
Created by Kokatha/Nukunu artist Yhonnie Scarce in collaboration with architects Aaron Roberts and Kim Bridgland, In Absence is a striking permanent architectural installation overlooking Berriedale Bay. Inspired by traditional eel traps and adorned with 1,400 hand-blown black glass murnong (daisy yams), the nine-metre-high pavilion offers a contemplative space that honours the enduring strength, knowledge and storytelling of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
Salamanca Arts Centre
A Riot. – 2–28 September 2026
Bec Adamczewski takes inspiration from a flock of around 70 sulphur-crested cockatoos whose daily routine was thrown into chaos when one of their regular trees was cut down, turning the birds’ ensuing ‘riot’ into a playful exploration of our relationship with the natural world.
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.
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG)
Becoming Modern: Mid-century Australian Art – until 26 September 2027
A major survey exploring Australian modernism through painting, sculpture and design from the mid-twentieth century.
Looking for more ways to fill your month? Check out our comprehensive list of everyone who announced Australian tours in 2026 (and where to buy tickets).
Feature image:
