Please see below for current and forthcoming exhibitions and events featuring our staff and alumni.

Dr Carolyn McKenzie-Craig: Becoming Penguin (Act II)

Head of Printmaking, Dr Carolyn McKenzie-Craig, presents Becoming Penguin (Act II) at PARKER Contemporary, Brisbane. The exhibition asks what it means to seek protection from a world that continues to decide who is seen, who is suspected, and who is left outside the huddle.

On until 18 July.

Level Two: CHALK HORSE 

Alum Dean Brown, Danny Morse and Mechelle Bounpraseuth feature in the group exhibition Level Two at CHALK HORSE. Level Two celebrates CHALK HORSE’s expansion into a second-level viewing room. Spanning both floors of their William St gallery, Level Two presents works from the entire stable and four guest artists. The group exhibition marks an exciting new development in the gallery’s almost two-decade history, grounding CHALK HORSE within the diverse and dynamic cross-section of Australasian and international contemporary art.

On until 19 July. 

Salon de Refuses 

The Salon des Refusés presents a compelling selection of Archibald and Wynne Prize entries that were not included in the official exhibitions, offering a bold and refreshing alternative each year. Celebrated for its diversity, it has become one of Sydney’s most anticipated showcases of contemporary portraiture and landscape painting. This year’s exhibition features NAS alumni, including Ann Cape. 

On until 26 July. 

Michelle Belgiorno: Resilience

Alum Michelle Belgiorno presents Resilience at Art Artium 48. Resilience contemplates nature’s enduring capacity to adapt, withstand and renew itself. Inspired by observations of coastal landscapes around Sydney and Pittwater, the exhibition situates the Australian bush as a site of constant flux, where life continues to emerge despite competition for light, water and soil. Through this lens, Belgiorno presents the natural world not as orderly or idealised but as something shaped by an ever-changing ecology of struggle, coexistence, survival and renewal.

On until 1 August.

Benjamin Akuila: Spilt Milk (and hard honey)

Exhibitions Project Assistant, Benjamin Akuila, features in Spilt Milk (and hard honey), at West Space, Melbourne, an exhibition bringing together seven Moana heritage artists from Aotearoa and Australia whose practices have been cultivated in these abundant lands. 

Akuila’s work explores ideas of cultural authenticity and identity performances within the Tongan-Australian diaspora through the material use of clay. Through investigating societal constructs of history, identity, and gender, Akuila utilises humour and heliaki (allusion) to subvert these preconceived notions. Akuila’s work reinterprets traditional Tongan artmaking and applies these practices to contemporary materials to explore new narratives of identity.

On until 8 August.

CBD Gallery: New Voices

CBD Gallery presents New Voices, showcasing six emerging 2025 National Art School graduates who push the boundaries of contemporary art-making through painting and printmaking. Featuring Fergus Berney-Gibson, Mary Benvenuto, Lei Feng, India Jablonski, Daniel He Wang and Fiona Verity. 

Opening night is on Thursday 23 July, 6.00 – 8.00pm. 

On until 15 August.

Nick Collerson: Dithyramb 

Painting lecturer, Nick Collerson, presents Dithyramb at PALAS, Sydney. The Dithyra­mb is the mys­tery genre of Art, ready-found every­where, yet all alone. It takes the form of many guis­es: paint­ing, song, den­dri­tol­ogy, ani­mal han­dling, or all these togeth­er at once. In fact, owing to its ubiq’ qual­i­ty, it can go unno­ticed, even though it is always very close by. Its tell-tail signs are play, rav­ing and enthu­si­as­tic-intox­i­ca­tion, in All senses. 

On until 22 August. 

Chris Packer: Waverley Art Prize Finalist Exhibition 

Since 1986, the Waverley Art Prize has celebrated excellence in painting and drawing, supporting artists and delighting audiences. For its 40^th Anniversary, Bondi Pavilion Art Gallery hosts this year’s finalist exhibition; works that are bold, playful, celebratory, thought-provoking and inspiring. Featuring work by alum Chris Packer. 

On until 23 August. 

Kirtika Kain: Pitch 

Alum Kirtika Kain presents Pitch, a new exhibition shaped by her ongoing engagement with anti‑caste movements and the experience of caste in the diaspora.  In her works, gold, bitumen, and turmeric combine to create intricate and luminous surfaces that highlight the aesthetic and affective qualities of her chosen materials.  Pitch is a Murray Art Museum Albury exhibition presented in partnership with Campbelltown Arts Centre. 

On until 3 September.

Amelia Skelton: NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging) Exhibition 

Alum Amelia Skelton has been named the recipient of the prestigious 2026 NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging). The $30,000 fellowship will support a 12-month self-directed program of professional development to further her artistic practice.

Bringing together the work of seven early-career artists, the NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging) Exhibition explores the shifting boundaries between what is seen and heard, image and object, permanence and impermanence. Through diverse artistic approaches, the artists consider how materiality, sensation and intuitive forms of knowing can open up new ways of thinking and being.

On until 6 September.

Zara Collins: Only a memory away

Alum Zara Collins is the Focus Artist of the 2026 Friends Annual and Focus Exhibition at Campbelltown Arts Centre, presenting Only a memory away. 

Zara Collins’ practice examines the unstable nature of memory and the stories inherited in childhood — how they shift, distort, and fade over time. This body of work considers our longing for an idealised past and the fragile, sensory triggers that allow memory to surface at the edge of disappearance. 

She explore these ideas through everyday objects — familiar textile forms and personal clothing that carry intimate histories of care, collection, repetitive use and repair. Working with porcelain, ceramics and Kozo paper, she employ processes such as the ceramic burn-out, hand-building, frottage, tracing, and imprinting to translate soft, worn materials into fragile, enduring forms. These works hold impressions of touch and time, balancing delicacy with persistence. 

Informed by her upbringing in a multigenerational refugee household in Adelaide, the work reflects on cultural slippage — the gradual loss, adaptation, or softening of language, rituals, and traditions in the pursuit of belonging. This erosion often occurs quietly, without recognition of what is being surrendered. 

Positioned between loss and reclamation, the exhibition traces an ongoing attempt to reconnect with Latvian and Lithuanian familial histories and cultural practices, considering how sensorial and inherited memory might act as a fragile bridge back to what feels increasingly distant. 

On until 13 September. 

If you are NAS alumni or staff, and would like your current or upcoming exhibition listed on this page, please email alumni@​nas.​edu.​au  

Image: Installation view: Nick Collerson, Dithyramb. Courtesy of the artist and PALAS, Sydney, photo: Josh Raymond