Cats, motherhood and memory: The best exhibitions to catch in 2026
SOURCE:Sydney Morning Herald|BY:Tiarney Miekus
Art lovers are in for another great year. Here’s our pick of the biggest shows coming up.
From exhibitions on the experiences of motherhood to global precarity, and even one show that delves inside the minds of our feline friends, these are the exhibitions to catch in 2026.
TARRAWARRA INTERNATIONAL 2026: SYSTEM RELEASE
Marco Fusinato’s Desastres, 2024.Credit: Marco Fusinato
Art is often a structure to make sense of – or at least attempt to express – the unsensible. In a precarious, complex and changing world, artists in System Release are being asked not only to create new work, but new “systems of order”. The remit of the international series is to reflect global perspectives, threading international and Australian artists — and this show already has a palpable, inventive exhibiting list. There’s Marco Fusinato, who recently represented Australia in the Venice Biennale, and Quandamooka artist Megan Cope, best known for her 85,000 repurposed oyster shells piled outside the Sydney Opera House in 2023. The international artists include Maori artist Nikau Hindin and Mexican artist José Dávila. TarraWarra Museum of Art, March 21 – July 5
A VELVET ANT, A FLOWER AND A BIRD
Derek Tumala’s work Kayamanan ng Pilipinas, 2020-21.
With a gracious title like A velvet ant, a flower and a bird this exhibition already hints towards quietly hefty forms and ideas, with the central focus on rethinking typical notions of intelligence (an interesting exercise for a university gallery, inevitably tied to an institution that standardises intelligence). Curated by renowned Spanish curator and art historian Chus Martínez, the show is structured like a garden of knowledge, taking cues from three elements: an ant, a flower, a bird. Here, animal wisdom reigns; nature is endowed with intelligence usually saved for humans. Works from the University of Melbourne’s classics and biology collections will be shown alongside the gallery’s collection, plus new work from local and international artists – all offering different kinds of knowledge. Potter Museum of Art, February 19 – June 6
ARE YOU LONELY TONIGHT? I’M SO LONESOME I COULD CRY.
ACCA’s show will be a vulnerable reflection of — or perhaps consolation for — loneliness.
“Loneliness is personal, and it is also political,” wrote Olivia Laing in The Lonely City. “As to how to inhabit it, there are no rules and nor is there any need to feel shame …” Laing is a genius communicator of the meeting point between art, feeling and longing – which ACCA will strive to match in its new Art and Emotion series. The gallery’s 2026 emotion, loneliness, couldn’t be more urgent, the feeling being a concrete social issue. The show, its title taken from an Elvis Presley lyric, will include works by Polly Borland, Seth Brown, Lucy Liu, Kayla Mattes and Martine Syms. Covering multiple forms, it will be a vulnerable reflection of – or perhaps consolation for – loneliness. Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, July 3 – August 30
MOTHER
Davida Allen’s work Baby, 1989.Credit: NGV Australia
The critical, literary and visual discourse on motherhood is ever-increasing. This exhibition is another reminder that motherhood, a subject that has long preoccupied artists, deserves all the attention it gets. MOTHER features more than 200 historical and contemporary works from the NGV collection. Exploring being and having a mother, the list of artists being exhibited boasts names such as Louise Bourgeois, Tracey Emin, David Hockney, Karla Dickens, Judith Wright, Tracey Moffat, Iluwanti Ken, Hayley Millar Baker and Patricia Piccinini, among many more. Thematically the exhibition will look at the joy, expectations, labour and mythology of motherhood, alongside a connection with nature and Country for First Nations artists. Moving from creation to caregiving, to tragedy and loss, it will cover a lifetime. The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, March 27 – July 12
CAT ISLAND
A cat watching video of itself forms part of Jen Valender’s Cat Island, to be shown at Science Gallery Melbourne.Credit: Jen Valender
Have you ever held your phone screen up to your cat’s face, reflecting their image like a selfie, seeing if they notice the cat staring back at them? Well, if you have, Cat Island may interest you. Created by artist Jen Valender — who tests the intersections between art and nature — the work connects new technology with research on animal colour perception from the Stuart-Fox Lab at the University of Melbourne. Featuring footage of cats from Ainoshima Island, a famous “Cat Heaven Island” in Japan, Valender interrogates how cats respond to digital imagery — and their own image. Viewers can watch Valender’s film of playful interactions with the cats through an interactive installation, which can be altered to reflect “cat vision”. Science Gallery, February 18 – May 1
GEORGIA SPAIN
“Riding for the feeling”, by Georgia Spain, 2025.
Each time Georgia Spain unveils her latest paintings at Tolarno Galleries, it’s a moment to acknowledge the enduring gift of the art form. Represented by the esteemed gallery before she turned 30 (and having a sellout show on her 30th birthday), Spain paints with a style, gravity and subject matter that reveals a mix of intensity and experiment. Her paintings feel deeply. They often contain figures flung about in haphazard brush strokes, with her later works becoming more abstract, indulging in the power of painting and images to convey — not always to convey a particular message, but simply to convey. This exhibition follows her recent residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris and will feature new paintings.
Tolarno Galleries, September
POETRY GOES NO FURTHER THAN LANGUAGE
Members of the Beijing collective New Measurement Group at work.
The move towards analytic, conceptual art in China in the 1980s and 1990s has been an overlooked period — something this exhibition seeks to rectify. In revisiting the critical consciousness of this period, which challenged all kinds of bureaucracies, the show will most notably remake experimental works by Beijing collective New Measurement Group. Eschewing any sense of individual authorship, the collective created conceptual works favouring mechanistic and minimalist processes. Alongside will be works from Qian Weikang, M Art Group, Xiamen Dada, Southern Artists Salon and Cao Youlian — all woven together by a new installation from Melbourne-based artist Darcey Bella Arnold, reinforcing the show’s concerns with language and conceptualism. In looking to the past, it may have lessons for the present.
Buxton Contemporary, May 1 – October 10
NAMINAPU MAYMURU-WHITE
Milŋiyawuy River of Stars, bark painting by Naminapu Maymuru-White, 2025Credit: Aaron Anderson
At the age of 73, Naminapu Maymuru-White has become deservedly renowned for her black-and-white works reflecting Yolngu cosmology, where the earthly meets the celestial. A few years ago one of her paintings on bark was transformed into a monumental installation at the National Gallery of Victoria – building on the already overwhelming experience of her art. Maymuru-White began painting at 12, taught by uncle Narritjin Maymuru, as well as her father, Nänyin Maymuru, both well-known artists. She became one of the first Yolngu women to be taught to paint miny’tji, (sacred clan designs), with the eventual introduction of printmaking into her practice, further elevating her works. Her solo show will contain new pieces across bark paintings, larrakitj and works on board.
Sullivan+Strumpf, July 30 – August 22
TIME MOVES THROUGH THESE WALLS, AND MAREE CLARKE
Long Journey Home, by Maree Clarke.
Linden New Art is starting the year with two separate but significant exhibitions; one, titled Time Moves Through These Walls, celebrates the gallery’s 40th anniversary, and the other is a solo exhibition by the inimitable Boonwurrung artist Maree Clarke. For four decades, Linden has provided exhibiting space to emerging and mid-career artists. The anniversary exhibition will examine the St Kilda building’s history and architecture, with new works from Ernie Althoff, Carolyn Eskdale, Raafat Ishak, Callum Morton, Rose Nolan, Robbie Rowlands, Mitch Mahoney, Fiona Abicare and Ry Haskings. Meanwhile, Clarke will create a photographic installation on the building’s facade, acknowledging the Linden site for the Boonwurrung people, and consider the site’s colonial history.
Linden New Art,February 21 – May 17
MY BLOOD SINGS OLD SONGS
Leyla Stevens, still from Kidung, 2019, three-channel film, stereo sound.
Curated by Maya Hodge, a young Lardil curator and writer who has delivered some astounding shows in the last few years (most notably a show on Aboriginal women and resistance at Incinerator Gallery) this group exhibition features existing and new photographic and moving image works. Hodge’s projects foreground First Nations voices and storytelling, centered on community and care — and this show extends these values through considering memory. With works by Atong Atem, Sonja Hodge, Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis, Leyla Stevens, wani toaishara and more to be announced, it traces how memories linger within our bodies and images of bodies. In cementing the inherent importance of ancestry and cultural legacy, it looks towards the personal and collective stories carried through bloodlines.
