Art Guide Australia

Art Guide Australia is a print and online magazine exploring contemporary Australian art. Our editors and our team of writers and contributors know the local art scene and keep you informed through engaging and thoughtful articles. We speak with artists, curators and gallerists to learn more about their ideas and share them with an audience who want to know more about Australian art and what to see. We’re here to support a vibrant and diverse arts community and our aim is to provide independent, considered editorial coverage alongside a comprehensive picture of what’s happening in the visual arts across Australia.

A Note From the Editor January/February 2026

Art Guide Australia

Issue 159 Contributors

Fremantle/Walyalup

Katoomba/Dharug and Gundungurra Country

Cairns/Gimuy

Liverpool/Dharawal Country

Perth/Boorloo

Melbourne/Naarm

Hobart/Nipaluna

Canberra/Ngambri Country

Caboolture/Kabi Kabi Country

Tweed Valley/Bundjalung Country

WHEN CODE MEETS CARE • Digital art often overwhelms the senses, but April Phillips invites us to slow down. In a new major commission, she turns light, sound and code into something tactile, gentle and deeply human.

20 QUESTIONS WITH Jess Cochrane • Jess Cochrane is a modern-day artist, looking through a lens of Impressionism, motherhood and her camera roll. Acknowledging the legacies of life before her, the London-based artist’s work combines inspiration from the past with the mundane of the present, to create a time stamp of life in this moment. Her latest solo show, The Middle of the Flower at Sullivan+Strumpf in Sydney, is an ode to family history and family heartbreak, as she embarks on a journey of self-exploration.

Shadow Play • A major touring exhibition of large format screen prints by Indonesian and Australian artists explores the transgressive allure of the Indonesian night market, and highlights the possibilities of collective creative exchange.

Craft Master • Material and memory come together in the deliberately crafted works of multidisciplinary artist Helen Britton, whose longstanding practice is being celebrated by the Australian Design Centre.

Hany Armanious

The Threads That Bind • Fibre artist Tammy Kanat’s weaving practice began, as many good yarns do, by chance—and is guided by an intuitive relationship with her chosen material.

Stress Test • The 2026 Adelaide Biennial, Yield Strength, highlights the ways artists are pushing materials to their limits, to reflect the world around them.

The Process is the Point: The Power of the Art World Novel

Making a Home • A clan of characters from the storied three-decade practice of Sydney-based artist Nell settle into the domestic surrounds of Heide Modern.

All Grown Up • For visitors and artists alike, Iconic, Loved, Unexpected—the inaugural exhibition celebrating the reopening of an iconic institution—will feel both like a homecoming and a bold new beginning.

Victoria Exhibitions

New South Wales Exhibitions

Queensland Exhibitions

Australian Capital Territory Exhibitions

Tasmania Exhibitions

South Australia Exhibitions

Western Australia Exhibitions

Northern Territory Exhibitions

VICTORIA

MELBOURNE CBD

FITZROY/COLLINGWOOD

GREATER MELBOURNE

NORTHERN MELBOURNE AND SOUTHERN MELBOURNE

MAP 7 SYDNEY

SYDNEY CITY

DARLINGHURST/REDFERN/WATERLOO & PADDINGTON

GREATER SYDNEY & NEW SOUTH WALES

GREATER BRISBANE & QUEENSLAND

BRISBANE & CANBERRA

HOBART & ADELAIDE

PERTH & FREMANTLE

LAST WORD