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

Sydney Contemporary 2026 

Numerous National Art School staff and alumni are featured at Sydney Contemporary 2026. From 3 – 6 September, more than 100 galleries from nine countries come together at Carriageworks for the 10^th edition of Australasia’s premier art fair, giving collectors and first-time buyers alike the chance to find and buy art at every price point. 

Featured artists include: 

• Arthouse Gallery — Amelia Skelton (alum and staff) 
• Chalkhorse — Mechelle Bounpraseuth (alum); Jason Phu (staff) 
• Cicada Press — Chris O’Doherty aka Reg Mombassa (alum) 
• Dominik Mersch — Oliver Abbott (alum), Catherine O’Donnell (staff) 
• Gallery LNL — Sassy Park (alum and staff) 
• Martin Browne Contemporary — Ebony Russell (alum and staff) 
• Michael Reid Gallery — Tim Maguire (staff and Fellow) 
• N Smith — Joan Ross (alum, staff and Fellow); Fiona Lowry (staff) 
• Sullivan + Sullivan — Gemma Smith (staff) 
• Syrup Contemporary — Mike Parr (alum), Stephanie nova Milne (staff) 
• The Commercial — Mitch Cairns (alum) 
• The Renshaws’ — Karen Black (staff) 
• Velvet Lobster — Mungo Howard (alum) 
• 1301SW Starkwhite — Jelena Telecki (alum and staff) 
• CBD Gallery — Sophie Lampert (alum) Michelle van Eimeren (alum) 
• C. Gallery — Nic Fern (alum) 
• No Fantasy — Ali Tahayori (alum) and Ellen Dahl (staff)  

Adele Warner: Dear Daniel, I can’t think of anything worth writing, I just write to you so you know I am alive

Alum Adele Warner (BFA 2022) presents Dear Daniel, I can’t think of anything worth writing, I just write to you so you know I am alive at Minerva Gallery, Potts Point. The exhibition features works developed during Warner’s three-month residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris in 2025.

Opening Hours: Thursday — Sunday, 12–5pm

On view until 6 September 2026. 
 

Robert Owen: Axiom 

Alum and previous staff member Robert Owen presents Axiom at CASSANDRA BIRD. 

Axiom brings together art works that explore the fundamental conditions of perception through colour, light, sound, line and form. At its core is a sustained enquiry into the elemental structures through which experience emerges. An axiom is a proposition accepted as self-evident; a first principle from which other understandings unfold. Simple components give rise to infinitely complex relationships. Throughout Owen’s practice, these foundational systems are lived phenomena encountered through attentive observation of the everyday. 

Central to Axiom is a series of new paintings titled The Text of Light. These paintings depict fragments of light seemingly separated into their component colours, forming infinitely variable compositions. Like the words and letters of language, light is articulated as a vivid spectrum of colour. What initially appears as a rigorous formal vocabulary gradually reveals itself as richly sensory; shifting fields of colour that oscillate between precision and atmosphere, structure and intuition. The works invite sustained looking, allowing perception itself to become the subject. 

On view until 12 September 2026. 

Joan Ross: Hidden in plain sight  

With her fluoro-infused imagery subverting colonial art, National Art School alum and fellow Joan Ross examines the legacy of invasion and the consuming forces of settlement in Australia. 

Now on view at N.Smith Galley, Hidden in plain sight continues Ross’ incisive examination of Australia’s colonial histories and the visual languages through which they have been formed. 

Drawing on the traditions of colonial portraiture and still life, Joan disrupts familiar images and symbols to expose the power structures embedded within them. Her work is characteristically irreverent, unsettling established narratives and question who has been represented, who has been excluded, and how these histories continue to shape contemporary Australia. 

On view until 19 September 2026. 

Elizabeth Rankin: The Image of Her 

Alum Elizabeth Rankin presents The Image of Her at Invisible Art Space. 

Inspired Simone de Beauvior, The Second Sex, Rankin explores how women experience and perceive their bodies throughout different stages of life. In this exhibition, Rankin does not portray perfect bodies, or exaggerated imperfect bodies, but the bodies of older women and pregnant women with the changes that these two things bring. The hands of the women deny total access to their bodies and at the same time are self-caressing and self –defining.  

On view from 5 September to 27 September 2026. 

Mel Jhey: Exquisite Intangible 

Alum Mel Jhey presents Exquisite Intangible at Owens Collective. This exhibition brings together ceramic sculpture and drawing to explore the relationship between body, material and transformation. Jhey’s work investigates material agency, somatic experience and the evolving dialogue between the maker and the made. 

On view from Friday 4 September to Sunday 20 September 2026. 

UPSpace Gallery: New Old Work 

Staff members Dr Margaret Roberts, India Zegan and Justin Henderson present New Old Work at UPSpace Gallery. 

On view from Friday 25 September to Sunday 4 October 2026. 

2026 Fisher’s Ghost Art Award Exhibition 

Numerous National Art School alumni and staff have been named finalists in the 2026 Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, one of Australia’s most significant annual art prizes. 

Among the finalists are alumni Robby Bennett, Maryanne Wick, Joshua Charadia, Zara Collins, Jennings Keer, Christine Druitt-Preston, Lucas Howard, Kyra Henley, Fergus Berney-Gibson and Imogen Eve Rowe, alongside Head of Printmaking, Carolyn McKenzie-Craig. 

The finalists’ exhibition will be on display at Campbelltown Arts Centre from 26 September to 4 December 2026. 

Osvaldo Budet: Upriver Downriver 

Drawing lecturer Osvaldo Budet features in Upriver Downriver at Maitland Regional Art Gallery. Showcasing artists from across the Hunter region, the exhibition celebrates the breadth of creative practices and ideas shaped by the communities connected through the Hunter River. 

On view until 11 October 2026. 

Luke Thurgate: New Religion 

Drawing lecturer Luke Thurgate appears in New Religion at Ngununggula, Retford Park, Southern Highlands Regional Gallery. New Religion fosters a dialogue between works of art and objects from both historical and contemporary origins. It intentionally places historic works within a modern context, asking us to consider why they continue to captivate us. By bringing contemporary commissions into dialogue with historic works, New Religion invites reflection on why certain images, rituals, and systems of belief continue to resonate, and how they are reinterpreted across time, cultures, and lived experience. 

On view until 18 October 2026. 

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, Robert Owen, Axiom, CASSANDRA BIRD, 2026, image courtesy the artist and CASSANDRA BIRD, © the artist, photograph: Laura Moore