National Photographic Portrait Prize 2026

Visual Art Exhibition Review

National  Photographic Portrait Prize 2026 | Various Artists

National Portrait Gallery | 22 August – 11 October 2026

Warwick Art Gallery | 21 November 2026 – 16 January 2027

Glasshouse Port Macquarie | 6 February – 28 March 2027

Unley Museum | 16 April – 17 July 2027

Godinymayin Yijard Rivers Arts & Culture Centre | 21 August -23 October 2027

Gympie Regional Gallery | 26 November 2027 – 5 February 2028

The National Photographic Portrait Prize was first conducted in 2007. This is the final one. This year’s 30 finalists are in this exhibition. So too are 30 selected finalists from previous years. This review only discusses this year’s artworks.

One might say that 2026 was the year for Naarm/Melbourne photo artists as almost half of the finalists, including all three winners, are based there. The chosen winner is Nathan Beard. The First Time Finalist Award has been given to Phuong Nguyen Le. The Art Handlers’ Award was given to Hussein Abdirahman Mohamud. Their three winning images have, naturally, already been published and written about in numerous other places, so I will only look at some of the other 27 finalists here.

I really enjoyed The Falling, by collaborators Lakie Sideris and Gretel Taylor. Sideris is the artist who took the photograph. Taylor – a dance artist, curator and researcher known for her site-specific performance work – is the subject. The excellent image of a falling movement is a powerful portrayal of sensing and moving with the surrounding environment.

The Falling, 2026 – Laki Sideris, Gretel Taylor, pigment photographic print (frame: 87.0cm x 62.3cm depth 4.0cm)

There is much to look at in Walkabout, by Michael Cook. This portrait places its subject at the heart of Japan’s commercial district, memorialising aspects of Japanese culture. Whilst letting you explore it for yourself, I have to mention one thing that particularly attracted my attention. The subject is holding numerous dogs on leads. Watching them from high above is a cat. Not just any cat, but one who is a symbol of the Metropolitan Police Department. I imagine it pouncing should any dog misbehave.

Walkabout, 2025 – Michael Cook, pigment photographic print (frame: 125.1cm x 164.0cm depth 6.1cm)

Franky Tsang’s artwork, Between us, is a delightful study of his young daughter sitting quietly on her own. Tsang was nearby, watching from a short distance when he took the image, so it includes the nearby surroundings. The colourfully dressed child is beautifully lit seated beneath a streetlamp, whilst the surroundings are monotone. The image is an excellent example of the artist’s portraiture practice which focusses on subtle, often unspoken moments.

Between us, 2025 – Franky Tsang, pigment photographic print (frame: 90.0cm x 120.0cm depth 4.5cm)

Another diptych, by collaborators Briony Galligan and Abbra Kotlarczyk, explores  family trees, queerness, toxicity and healing. The artists explain their intention to use  a double exposure to counter “the idea that supposedly containable units of one’s family, body, identity and history are sealed in some way”. Regardless of that, both parts of the gentle, colourful diptych are delightful.

Arranging by chance (doctored exposure), 2025 – Briony Galligan, Abbra Kotlarczyk, diptych: pigment photographic prints (various (see individual records for details))

Another finalist is a high-quality monochrome portrait by Dean Saffron of a much-loved indigenous Australian photographer, Mervyn Bishop. He is pictured reflecting quietly just before his 80th birthday. Appropriately, he is accompanied by his own reflection. He is portrayed in the same honest way that his own works over many years have ensured other Aboriginal people have been seen.

Uncle Mervyn Bishop – Australia’s first Aboriginal press photographer, 2025 – Dean Saffron, gelatin silver photograph (image: 94cm x 140cm. frame: 103.3cm x 153.2cm depth 3.5cm)

I was personally most pleased to see a work by Madeline Bishop. I have known her since she was a baby and keenly followed her developing artist career. The image was shot as part of a series exploring how people make homes from the shell’s they’ve been given. The concept is “like spaces, our bodies hold history, memory and evidence of our experiences; the site for our hopes, dreams, anxieties and fears to play out.”

On the chair, 2025 – Madeline Bishop – pigment photographic print (frame: 59.8cm x 59.8cm depth 4.0cm)

I loved the idea behind A portrait as a parent. Mia M. McDonald began with a candid portrait taken in her kitchen. A print of it was attached to a wall and her kids were invited to hand-colour it as they wished. The end result was this most colourful fun portrait which, to my mind, perfectly portrays the colouring-in activity loved by children. I do have one small wish – I would have liked to see a little more of mum’s face.

A portrait as a parent, 2025 – Mia M. McDonald – lambda photographic print (frame: 120.2cm x 80.2cm depth 4.7cm)

Finally, a comment about a work by Canberra’s Sammy Hawker who continues to explore a diverse range of experimental techniques. The chromatograms are the most intriguing portraits I have ever seen. What do you think of the artwork?

Three Siblings Chromatograms of Emmie, Rasmus and Cosmos, 2026 – Sammy Hawker pigment photographic print (sight: 50.6cm x 134.0cm. frame: 54.4cm x 137.8cm depth 3.5cm)

If you are not able to visit the exhibition, all the finalists can be seen at https://www.portrait.gov.au/nppp-images.php. You can also vote for the People’s Choice Award there – voting closes Wednesday 30 September 2026.

This review is also available on the Canberra Critics Circle blog.

A shorter review has also been published on the Canberra City News website.

Reading Frames: explorations in what makes a photograph work

Book Review

Reading Frames: explorations in what makes a photograph work | W. Scott Olsen

The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City ©2026. All rights reserved.

Copyright for photographs remains with the individual photographers.

ISBN: 9781647692810 paperback | 9781647692827 epub

In 2020, I received an email from Tomash Trzebiatowski, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of FRAMES magazine asking if we could connect via Zoom. We did so nine days later. Six years on Tomasz and FRAMES have achieved extraordinary things. As I write the FRAMES Magazine Facebook group has 25,200 members.

I have read many of W. Scott Olsen’s monthly essays for FRAMES magazine. This book is some Olsen essays from the digital pages of FRAMES. Trzebiatowski correctly suggests Olsen’s writing is mentorship.

Using “plain language” for “people deeply involved in making photographs”, Olsen explains how images combine artistic elements and, thus, reach levels of sophistication and insight. Each essay starts Let’s begin with, and stay with, the image.

The first image I want to share here is by an Australian, Lyndall Gerlach. The Contemporary Lifestyle is a triptych I have seen before; once accompanied by these words:

It is 2021, 2 years into a pandemic that has so far killed 4,692,850 from 228,413,499 infected people. We are accepting there will be more deaths, as our society tries to find ‘normal’. My triptych illustrates life for some vulnerable ‘high risk’ people. It’s about their contemporary lifestyle choice, staying alive. Time and relationships irrelevant, days merge, contained, among written memories of other times, a far-seeing telescope, a couch to sleep on. Curtains shade reminders of life, alcohol dulls the pain and encourages sleep. Time passes. Painful aloneness, living it is a contemporary lifestyle for some.

The Contemporary Lifestyle by Lyndall Gerlach

In this book, Olsen writes beautifully describing the three parts of the triptych as the equivalent of a musical chord which has at least three notes played together, creating a richer, more nuanced combination. He suggests the three panels form an intellectual narrative.

Next, an image by Monica Riveiro from Spain. On her website she says photography inhabits a space between dreams and reality. Her image here is of two boys jumping into the sea from a pier. It is one of numerous street photography images she took in an urban space, Punta de Liquerique.

From Tales of Liquerique by Monica Riveiro

Olsen writes about the frozen moments that become photographs. He says at first glance the situation shown here was completely familiar, but that a deeper look revealed an inviting mystery. He suggests the somewhat ominous sky and city appearance in this black and white image would instead have a mood of summertime joy if it was in colour.

My third chosen image portrays a ballerina, photographed whilst the photographer was visiting Cuba. Cathy Cakebread, from the USA, uses photography as a way to slow down and, here, she has sought to capture the movement by doing just that – slowing it down.

Cuban Ballerina by Cathy Swain Cakebread

Olsen discusses how to make a ballet image fresh and original and says Cakebread has done it wonderfully. He explores shapes in the setting, elements of art, the ballerina’s pose, our privileged point of view, and the defining blur. He tells us what he saw.

My fourth selection is a view from a hotel window in Scotland. We’ve all taken such shots. This is by Ross Duncan, another Australian. It shows some old, inhabited buildings. The central home here is deliciously lit becoming a feature we are drawn to.

View from a hotel window by Ross Duncan

Olsen talks about the title identifying the point of view – the photographer is in a temporary residence looking at someone else’s permanent home. He sees a sadness created in the disconnect between hotel and home and suggests the twilight image is mesmerising because that is a time of change.

Finally, I share an Italian renaissance. Photographer Giuseppe Gradella from Mantua in Italy believes in memories and dreams, and this fine-artwork has a beautiful dream-like feeling.

Italian Renaissance by Giuseppe Gradella

Olsen comments about the frosted glass both revealing and obscuring the woman holding it. He draws our attention to squares and right angles, to the direction of cascading light, to the visual and narrative motion in the still-life image. He sees a specific real woman, a specific real place – and a moment where one woman becomes every woman.

Exploring this book has made think more about images that stop me – on webpages, in books, at exhibitions. I encourage you to do likewise.

This review is also available on the Canberra Critics Circle blog.

Canberra Contemporary Photographic Prize 2026

Visual Art Exhibition Review

Canberra Contemporary Photographic Prize 2026 I Various Artists

Photo Access I 16 July – 15 August 2026

The Canberra Contemporary Photographic Prize is an annual competition event conducted by Photo Access which results in an exhibition celebrating both emerging and established talents in photo media. Open to photographers worldwide, regardless of experience level, it showcases new perspectives in contemporary photography, offering a kaleidoscopic view of photographic art.

Forty finalists’ artworks are on display. The winning piece this year is 엄마의 초상화 (Portrait of My Mother), 2026 by Estelle Yoon. At the opening, after this was announced, I was one of many people who went in to check it out and overheard several of them querying how it could possibly be a portrait of the artist’s mother – given that there was no physical person in the image. Rather it is a photograph of an empty chair at the edge of an otherwise empty structure overlooking a frozen lake with part of a bridge in the background. So the questions in the viewers minds were fair enough.

Estelle Yoon – 엄마의 초상화 (Portrait of My Mother), 2026, glass, 35mm photograph, 43 x 28 cm (image courtesy photo access)

However, referral to the artist’s statement answers everything. The location is the artist’s late mother’s childhood home. She imagined her mother sitting there. The print is on glass, thus mirroring the fragile nature of our memories. The portrait attempts to hold on to what is gone. So, in my view, this artwork is a worthy choice by the judges.

There are, inevitably, numerous other works that might be selected as the best by different viewers. But that’s the way it always is with competitions. From the forty works selected as finalists, I felt that a large number of them would have been serious contenders and I’m glad I didn’t have to make the choice. I don’t have room to discuss all of them, but here are my comments about a small selection of the others.

Lisa Jayne Cramer’s work is also about a mother, but a very different one. Hidden Mother I-III, 2026 is a triptych which tells a powerful story about the artist’s desire to be a mother which never eventuated despite years of persistence. Her dream, her hoped for role as a mother, sadly evaporated leaving her to grieve, to let go, to care for herself rather than the child she wanted. As a person who adopted children because we couldn’t produce our own, this work spoke loudly to me.

Lisa Jayne Cramer – Hidden Mother I-III, 2026, archival pigment print, 41.2 × 97.6 cm (image courtesy photo access)

Danica Chappell’s Kaleidoscope series, 2025 is another delightful triptych. I think this is the first time I have seen an albumen work that is hand-coloured on vintage typewriter paper. I love the fact that the artist has flouted the long-held “rule” that light-sensitive paper or film should never be touched. That was drummed into my head years ago, along with the need to ensure our workspaces in darkrooms and water used in processing were all clean. Experimentation is how, as artists, people learn and develop new skills – and produce this type of most interesting work.

Danica Chappell – Kaleidoscope series, 2025, albumen, hand coloured on vintage typewriter paper, 41.5 x 97.8 cm (image courtesy photo access)

It is partly for the same reason that I enjoyed Resurfacing Roots, 2025 by Anna Kiparis. She used Maribyrnong River mud water to submerge her analogue film photographs of the landscape to mirror and commemorate the impacts of the 2022 Maribyrnong River flood. The resultant artwork shown in this exhibition speaks clearly to us.

Anna Kiparis – Resurfacing Roots, 2025, Maribyrnong River mud water, pigment ink on cotton rag, 80 x 55 cm (image courtesy photo access)

Josh Hughes has produced a most interesting video work titled How do you move?, 2026. It focusses exclusively on isolated body parts (the hands, feet, and mouth). It pushes and pulls, pitting ‘opposing actions’ against each other and revealing a grey area in between. It is well worth spending 4 minutes 38 seconds to view and listen to it all.

Josh Hughes – How do you move?, 2026, single-channel digital video, sound, 00:04:38, installation dimensions variable (image courtesy photo access)

The final artwork I will specifically mention is Together/Apart, 2025 by Ryan Dandelion. It is simply a contact silver gelatin print of a dry glass plate negative which cracked as he removed it from the holder to tray develop. The crack passed through the stone of a ring upon a pair of crossed hands. That simple mishap spoke to the artist, saying “Together yet forever apart.”

Ryan Dandelion – Together/Apart, 2025, silver gelatin print, 25.4 x 20.3 cm (image courtesy photo access)

There is so much of interest amongst the forty works on display. The exhibition is well worth a visit, but if you are not able to get there you can (at the time of my writing this) see all the actual works (not installation views of them) and read the artist statements here.

This review is also available on the Canberra Critics Circle blog

New Surroundings

New Surroundings – A recent move has opened up new photographic experiences

Every few months I write a piece for publication on the APS Focus page of Australian Photography magazine. My latest piece, New Surroundings, has been published in the current (August-September 2026) issue. Here it is (below a scan of the published piece):

My wife and I recently moved to a brand-new retirement village and now live in an apartment on the first floor of a modern four-storey building surrounded by three other blocks. Windows, sliding glass doors and a balcony provide varied views facing north, west and south. Opening windows and doors have flyscreens. All have a variety of curtains and blinds, some of which are translucent.

In between the major tasks of unpacking and settling in (including hanging far too many framed photographs), participating in various events designed to get to know other newly arrived residents, and much more, I have been grabbing images on my phone camera as I see things through, or reflected in, the glass – sometimes a combination of reflections in, and things beyond, the glass. Occasionally I shoot through the flyscreens, blinds or curtains.

I have also pulled the phone out of my pocket whilst walking between and around the four blocks to capture other things that caught my eye. Sunlight creates some wonderful designs on walls, windows, trees, outdoor furniture and even inside the village library facility as the last rays struck and passed through its windows.

If you read my Finding Images article in the February-March 2026 issue of this magazine, you might recall I advocated looking everywhere around and about us when photographing our surroundings. Taking my own advice in my new surroundings has delivered quite a lot of images that I am pleased with and which others who have seen them have applauded.

Of course, I can’t show you all the shots I’ve taken on this page, just one that I particularly like. But, if you are interested, you can see more of them online on the three different APS Facebook pages, plus my own Facebook and Instagram accounts.

No doubt I will continue to see new things in the village to photograph as the seasons change, as the gardens develop, and as more and more residents join us here. However, as soon as time permits I will also go out and about with my real camera to start exploring the neighbourhood, the suburban streets, activities at some recreation ovals just along our street, the local shopping centres, an expansive new playground and park I’ve just glimpsed whilst driving by, street signs, passing people and traffic, and much more that I know nothing of as yet.

Another photography adventure has commenced.

Sunlight magic © Brian Rope

Through curtained windows © Brian Rope

Time Carved In Stone

Book Review

Time Carved In Stone: Benjamin Kopilow

All photographs, text and design by Benjamin Kopilow

Published by Benjamin Kopilow, ©2026. All rights reserved.

1^st Edition. Published in Canberra, Australia

ISBN: 978-1-291-82268-7

The cover of the book – image © Benjamin Kopilow

Benjamin Kopilow is a photographer, teacher and mentor. I have personally experienced Ben in all those roles when he has spoken and shown his images at our local photographic society, and evaluated members’ works providing quality commentary and advice.

Kopilow’s interest in visual art didn’t begin with photography, but with conversations with his painter father as he grew up – about colour, shape, light, and composition. Painting wasn’t his talent, but photography became his way of exploring those same ideas. More than twenty years after a mid-30s career change to photography, this experienced and award-winning photographer says he is still fascinated by the way light, colour and composition can transform an ordinary scene into something memorable.

In 2025 Kopilow and his wife travelled through some of the world’s great desert and wilderness places, those of California and the Great Colorado Basin. He says the four weeks journey enabled him to explore and experience those places through form, shadow, texture, colour, and scale. He believes landscapes are sculptures shaped by time, and geological forces, then revealed in different ways by ever changing light.

Using images captured during the journey, Kopilow has now created this book. Time Carved in Stone is not simply images showing readers where they travelled. Much more significantly, this artist (for that is what he is) through his photo-art and accompanying words enables us to vicariously see what he refers to as a journey through deep time.

Each of twenty chapters looks at another place. First up is Death Valley with its salt-cracked floor. The last explores the polished granite walls of Yosemite National Park, well-known for the famous Ansel Adams’ images of it.

Death Valley © Benjamin Kopilow

Along the way we see various canyons including, of course, the Grand Canyon. The Kolb Brothers (who invented the selfie) pioneered the capturing of this canyon’s beauty in black and white in the early 1900s, but Kopilow’s beautiful colour images here are something else. We see the folded spine of Capitol Reef and the vast red silence of Monument Valley. The artist tells us that all of his landscape images are not merely describing, they allow us to see them in quiet contemplation. He is right.

Before the first chapter there are informative words, a map and an image of the Colorado Basin. Then there are 64 pages of glorious images revealing, amongst other features, Kanab and Horseshoe Bend.

Kanab Sand Caves © Benjamin Kopilow

Next some words about and images of Monument Valley inform and reveal to us that the glorious landscape and the magical sounds of traditional flutes of the Navajo. Then we learn about numerous other locations, including Factory Butte, Hickman Bridge, Escalante, Kodachrome Basin, Maple Mountain Provo, and Great Salt Lake.

In the chapter about Factory Butte there is an illustrated page of information about Buttes, Mesas, Pinnacles and Hoodoos. Here it is, so you can read it and learn if, like me, you need to.

If, again like me, you have never visited some of these places, you may not have even heard their names. Nevertheless, as you explore the pages you will recognise particular features because you have seen photos of them before. But there will be many other features that are new to you. Regardless of which category any particular image fits into for each of us, every one of them is an excellent sensory contribution to our appreciation of the geological history of these areas.

Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Land © Benjamin Kopilow

The images in each chapter reveal peaceful places that our minds can return to without necessarily looking at them again. I suspect those who practice meditation would consider them most useful resources.

Bryce Canyon & Fairyland © Benjamin Kopilow

We are able to explore these places that have been shaped by geology – by prehistoric oceans and inland seas, vanished deserts, restless rivers. For hundreds of millions of years, unseen geological forces have been quietly sculpting. It has been said that in these places is North America’s hidden backbone, the ancient core beneath us when flying or driving over, or walking amongst, them.

Moonscape Canyon © Benjamin Kopilow

The quality of both the words and images in this book provide a basis for us to think about the passage of time and its significance in life. Kopilow has used his personal sensory experiences to create images which have transformed the centuries old landscapes into living archives. He has delivered an excellent contribution to what is known as the quiet narrative genre, which relies primarily on his visual storytelling to convey messages, evoke emotions, and provoke thought. It challenges our perceptions and offers a deeper understanding of our human experiences.

Links to make purchases of the book in e-book, paperback and hard cover formats are available on the artist’s website, Lulu, Kobo and Ben’s Books.

This review is also available on the Canberra Critics Circle blog.

Murrudha: Sovereign Walks

Visual Art Exhibition Review

Murrudha: Sovereign Walks | Dr Matilda House, Brenda L. Croft, William James Mildenhall, Prue Hazelgrove, Dean Freeman, Cheryl Davison, Shane Herrington

ANU School of Art & Design Gallery | 7 July – 7 August 2026

In her capacity as team leader for the Australian National University (ANU) Indigenous Health and Wellbeing Grand Challenge, Professor Brenda L. Croft drew inspiration from her ancestors’ sovereign acts.

Protesting genocidal conditions imposed on them over eight decades of colonial and unsettler-colonial impact, more than 200 Gurindji (and related nations and clans) stockmen and their families marched off the 2nd Wave Hill Station in outback Australia in 1966. Together with an earlier sovereign action in 1963 by Yolngu people, their 22-kilometer Walk-Off Track garnered national and international coverage and support over nearly nine years of activism. It became seen as the origins of the national land rights movement.

In 1927, senior Wiradjuri walamira (clevermen) Nangar/Yangar (c.1848-1927) also known as Jimmy Clements), and Ooloogan (c. 1840-1928) also known as George John Noble and Marvellous together completed a 3 days, 93 miles (150 kilometres) walk. It was undertaken in order to demonstrate their sovereignty by being present for the official opening of the new federal Parliament House on 9 and 10 May on Ngambri/Ngunawal homelands in the, then, recently established national capital, Canberra. Contemporary press clippings acknowledge their participation as defending their sovereign rights to their traditional Country.

They walked from the Brungle Station (also known as Brungle Community), nestled between Gundagai and Tumut on Walgalu/Wiradyuri Country, across the Brindabella Range to Canberra. It has been (and is) the driving force for the Challenge project

Murrudha: Sovereign Walks – Track #14 is the fourteenth outcome associated with the Challenge project “Murrudha: Sovereign Walks – tracking cultural actions through art, Country, language and music”.

The Murrudha team and First Nations community members have undertaken two test walks determining Nangar and Ooloogan’s route, with a final test walk undertaken for the 99th anniversary in May 2026.

This exhibition showcases creative-led research in progress since 2020, including audio-visual documentation, alongside creative art and craftworks by a number of First Nations, and some non-Indigenous, artists associated with the project. The room sheet available at the exhibition provides background information regarding the various significant people integral to the project.

At the exhibition’s official opening guests heard a great presentation by Dr Aunty Matilda House OAM singing up Country and were treated to a wonderful performance by the Djinama Yalaga choir. And exhibition curator, Professor Croft, spoke passionately about the project. I mention that because all of those things added wonderfully to the visual art on display.

Dr Aunty Matilda House OAM © Brian Rope

Djinama Yalaga choir © Brian Rope

Professor Brenda L. Croft © Brian Rope

There are 35 diverse works in the exhibition including three audiovisuals to spend time with, two artworks by Dr Matilda House on loan from the Canberra Museum and Gallery Collection, and three photographs. Two of the latter show indigenous people on the steps of Parliament House – one on 10 May 1927, the other on 23 November 2023. The third is of George John Noble aka Marvellous with a dog, pre-1926. These photos are by William James Mildenhall and Prue Hazelgrove.

Aunty Matilda House was born in 1945 and is a proud Ngambri-Ngunnawal woman who has determinedly pursued social justice for Indigenous people in the wider community. She is well known and respected, indeed loved, by the general community of Canberra, all of whom have been at various events when Aunty has welcomed them to Country. It is good to have her artwork included here.

Many Canberrans know about the Mildenhall collection which comprises more than 7,700 images on glass plate negatives and has significant cultural and historical value to all Australians. Hazelgrove specialises in the wet plate collodion process. The inkjet print from her original tintype nicely complements the Mildenhall works.

Still image from: Brungle to Canberra – Final Test Walk 4-8 May 2026 (Murrudha: Sovereign Walks – Track # 14), projection. Participants: Brungle First Nations community members, Bugang Bila Indigenous Rangers (Tumut, Brungle, Snowy Mountains area), Professor Brenda L Croft, Monika Duggan, Terry Cleary, Rohit Rao (ANU). Drone operator/A-V documenter: Colin Elphick, Numeral Creative.

Dr Matilda House (Williams), Murumbeeja dooligah, 1996, Edition 1 /6. Printer Jan Hogan and Theo Trembly Studio One Inc Canberra. Canberra Museum and Gallery Collection.

Jimmy Clements (also known as Nangar, Yangar or ‘King Billy’) on the front steps of Parliament House, c. 10 May 1927. Photograph by William James Mildenhall. Inkjet print on archival paper. National Archives of Australia.

Prue Hazelgrove, Nangar and Ooloogan Descendants on steps of Old Parliament House, 23 November 2023, as part of Murrudha: Sovereign Walks – Track #4, 24 November 2023. Inkjet print on archival paper, (from original tintype, wet plate collodion process) on archival paper.

There is a superb acrylic gouache on rag board by Cheryl Davison, some beautiful wood coolamons by Dean Freeman, and an impressive bark canoe and wooden spears by Shane Herrington. And, last but not least, numerous high quality inkjet prints (from original tintypes) by Brenda L. Croft. Davison’s artwork is inspired by the river that flows from the mountains to the sea (a phrase Canberrans know well) through the Country of her grandfather. Making cultural objects allows Freeman to connect with what his Ancestors used in their daily lives. Herrington’s approach also fosters a deep connection to cultural heritage. Croft’s artworks here are some of her First Nations portraits created since 2019.

Cheryl Davison, Still on Country, 2026, acrylic gouache on rag board, 70 x 57 cm.

Dean Freeman, gulaman (coolamons) (installation), 2023-26, wood, dimensions variable. Installation image © Brian Rope

Shane Herrington, Murlin (bark canoe) 2026. Bark, bush string, dimensions variable, and Spears, 2026. Wood, bush string, dimensions variable. Installation image © Brian Rope

Brenda L. Croft, Julie (Dhulanyagan clan, Yorta Yorta/Wiradjuri/Wurundjeri Peoples), 2024 from the series Naabámi (thou shall/will see): Barangaroo (army of me). 42 x 27.9cm, inkjet print (from original tintype, wet plate collodion process) on archival paper.

Brenda L. Croft, Men of High Degree: Jim Everett – puralia meenamatta (clan plangermairreenner, Ben Lomond people, Cape Portland nation, north-east Tasmania), 2023. 42 x 27.9cm, inkjet print (from original tintype, wet plate collodion process) on archival paper.

There it is – art, Country, language and music. All feature in this excellent and important exhibition – and in planned associated events. Please see it in person if you are able to.

This review is also available on the Canberra Critics Circle blog.

Arthur Boyd: Tapestries

Visual Art Exhibition Review

Arthur Boyd: Tapestries | Curated by Adam Lindsay and Elspeth Pitt

National Gallery of Australia, Level 1, Gallery 12 | 20 June – 18 October 2026

In this major exhibition, the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) is presenting the complete series of twenty monumental tapestries by renowned Australian artist Arthur Boyd. He is one of Australia’s most celebrated artists, whose long career encompassed multi-genres including painting, printmaking and ceramics. Until now his tapestries have received relatively little attention.

Boyd has said that art is a journey to unknown destinations and that the more we embrace the unknown the richer our journeys become. That resonates deeply with all creatives as it beautifully expresses the essence of artistic exploration. These tapestries are only one part of his extensive artistic exploration of the life of Saint Francis of Assisi.

Through the 1950s and into the 60s, Boyd’s interest in Saint Francis arguably became obsessive. In 1965, he exhibited a series of pastel drawings exploring Francis.

Despite not selling many of those artworks, he later chose twenty and sent high quality images of them to the famous Portuguese tapestry workshop Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre commissioning them to make these tapestries – which were acquired by the NGA in 1975. Fifty years later the twenty tapestries are all being exhibited together for the first time anywhere.

We’ve all heard of Saint Francis, for there have been movies about him and he has been written about more than most people. But some of us know more about him than others. And many of us may not be aware of, or appreciate, what made him so interesting to Boyd. Francis is said to have devoted his life to poverty, piety and prayer and he founded the Franciscan Order. He also loved nature. Pope Gregory IX canonised him two years after his death in a chapel near Assisi.

Boyd drew on biographies, figures and stories regarding Francis for both personal and universal reflections. Some of his artworks absolutely reflect accounts of events in the Saint’s life. Others show imagined events mostly based on Boyd’s explorations of biblical and literary sources. The works explore universal human conditions.

At 2.5 by 3.4 metres, each tapestry is a scene in the Boyd’s retelling of the life of Francis. Woven at a scale more than 20 times larger than Boyd’s original source images, and each containing between 4 and 8.5 million stitches, the finished textiles are a testament to the collaborative process of artistic creation.

The 20 textiles, known as the Life of St Francis (1970–74), inspire awe in their vision, scale and artistry. They are shown here alongside lithographs, pastels and drawings that demonstrate the creative and technical processes involved in their translation across media. And there is a beautiful accompanying publication which unpicks this textile cycle’s fascinating context and weaves together the story of their creation.

Installation view, Arthur Boyd: Tapestries, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, 2026, Arthur Boyd’s work reproduced with the permission of Bundanon Trust

Unsurprisingly, the works in this St Francis series are rich in musical associations. Listening to classical music whilst painting was central to Boyd’s creative process. Indeed, during an interview in 1980 he said the music was ‘as important as the actual brushes’.

Walking into the first room of the exhibition, visitors are confronted by a huge portrayal of the weaving process via a film in which weavers using the same techniques as those used to create Boyd’s tapestries check their work at the end of the day. It wonderfully sets the scene for everything else that will be seen as we move through all the spaces.

Weavers at Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre, Portalegre, Portugal, 2025. Courtesy the Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre.

Going further we see so much more than just 20 marvellous tapestries. There are lithographs, pastels and drawings. There are weaving drawings, masses of written information explaining what is in each room, and an excellent documentary video about the installation of the exhibits and Senior Curator Elspeth Pitt visiting Portugal and Assisi. And there are visitors clearly astounded by what they are viewing, exploring individual pieces closely and pointing out particular things to their companions.

Elspeth Pitt, Senior Curator, Australian Art, National Gallery with Arthur Boyd: Tapestries, installation view, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, 2026, Arthur Boyd’s work reproduced with the permission of Bundanon Trust

Arthur Boyd, Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre, Lurdes Branquinho (draughtsman (intermediary)), St Francis holding St Clare’s hair, 1974, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, purchased 1975, Arthur Boyd’s work reproduced with the permission of Bundanon Trust

Arthur Boyd, Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre (tapestry workshop), St Francis lying in the flames, 1972, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, purchased 1975, Arthur Boyd’s works reproduced with the permission of Bundanon Trust

Installation view, Arthur Boyd: Tapestries, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, 2026, featuring: Arthur Boyd, Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre, St Francis turning Brother Masseo, 1973; St Francis being beaten by his father, 1973; St Francis blowing Brother Masseo into the air, 1973, purchased 1975, Arthur Boyd’s work reproduced with the permission of Bundanon Trust

When we emerge there is a large, constructed loom display, a wall showing Boyd’s life timeline, the opportunity to participate in workshops, and more. Whether or not tapestry has ever been one of your interests, this is an exhibition not to be missed.

This review is also available on the Canberra Critics Circle blog.

VIEW2026

Visual Art Exhibition Review

VIEW2026 | Cass Li, Dylan Marriott, Elesa Stellios, Toni Tait, XinShuo Zhuo

Curated by Gabrielle Hall-Lomax

Photo Access I 4 June – 11 July 2026

VIEW is an annual exhibition at Photo Access which offers a glimpse into the future of Australian photographic practice. It does that by sharing artworks by emerging artists.

VIEW2026 unites a range of analogue, digital and experimental multi-media by Cass Li, Dylan Marriott, Elesa Stellios, Toni Tait and XinShuo Zhuo. It is accompanied by a publication designed by Litia Roko which includes an essay by Victoria Kung.

In the foreword of the publication, Photo Access Director Alex Robinson notes that 2026 is regarded as the bicentenary of the birth of photography and so is a year of reflection. He also suggests that what connects the work of the artists in this exhibition is an acknowledgement of photography as a form of memorialising. And, importantly, he argues that the year is also one of looking forward to a future with limitless possibilities.

XinShuo Zhuo, Among the Interstices, installation view, 2026. Image: Gabrielle Hall-Lomax

As always when walking into this gallery, the works to the left are the first that visitors see. In this exhibition they are those of XinShuo Zhuo. The large cascading calligraphy scroll is the very successful feature piece amongst numerous small, distressed and toned prints decorating the surrounding wall spaces. The artist is seeking to explore the relationship between images, memory and environment. It draws on Zhuo’s personal life journey so far and encourages us to wonder about the future. Essayist Kung suggests this body of work awakens a tenderness, a fragility, creating an inward expanse that makes room for feeling.

Moving into the space to the right of the entrance, there are works by three more of the artists. On the left Dylan Marriott shows us two pieces from a forthcoming solo show he is to have in Melbourne. One shows youths we are barely able to see lounging along a river’s edge. It is an impressive and powerful work. This artist has said he is jealous of painting’s freedom of expression, yet here he has shown today’s photographers can also be similarly free.

Dylan Marriott, Wake, installation view, 2026. Image courtesy the artist.

On the long opposite wall and the small end wall of this space there are fourteen pieces by Cass Li. The sole artwork on the end wall is vibrantly coloured capturing attention immediately, so much so that I examined it first before turning back to the other images by Li. Each piece looks at a different aspect of the last days of her grandfather’s life and the mourning period that followed. This documentary series is, for me, the highlight of the exhibition. Initially concluding that Together, There’s No Need to Cry, Li has most successfully pulled together how different generations of her family have dealt with their grief, whilst also tracing the family’s migration journey. Taoist rites, Chinese Timorese ancestry, belongings left behind, and much more are all part of this wonderfully creative and moving, yet documentary, project.

Cass Li, Fung Bao 2013-2024, installation view, 2026. Image: Gabrielle Hall-Lomax

Cass Li, Popo in Kung Kung’s room, searching, 2024. Image courtesy the artist.

Finally, in the back room, Elesa Stellios is exhibiting a three-screen video installation, employing an interactive program. And Toni Tait has two works, also involving video. One is described as “remediated video” – remediation being the process of adapting content from one medium to another. Tait’s other work has archival audio, field recording and a section of PVC pipe also contributing.

Elesa Stellios, this is how i must look, video still, 2026

Toni Tait, This is Fair Dinkum, video still detail, 2025

Once again, the annual VIEW project has delivered interesting and diverse artworks by another group of early-career artists. The accompanying publication refers to the project being “resolutely focused on the broadest definition” of photographic practice. That certainly is true of this exhibition. The question that cannot be answered at this time in 2026 is whether or not these, or other, artists will continue to explore the same types of work or will move into other areas. We will have to wait and see where each participant goes in their future practices. Given what Alex Robinson has referred to as limitless possibilities, each of these artists might take their practices anywhere!

This review is also available on the Canberra Critics Circle blog.

BEYOND

Visual Arts Exhibition review

BEYOND: An art tonic, making sense of this discombobulating time by Kati Gorgenyi, Toni Hassan, John Pratt, and Ujala Aftab

Chapel Gallery, Charles Sturt University | 7 – 23 May 2026

We read, hear and view true, distorted, opionated and fake news stories every day. We struggle to make sense of so much that reaches us via newspapers, radios, TV broadcasts, the diverse accounts on all the different social media platforms, and even in the views of family and friends. Are you distressed by the state of our world and the assault of saturating, doomsday news?

The four artists in this exhibition, Kati Gorgenyi, Toni Hassan, John Pratt, and Ujala Aftab, each grappled with what it meant for them to be living in the information age and to be perplexed by the speed of environmental and political change. They used diverse materials to address the complex issues.

Their joint project was conceived in 2024 with shared questions: ‘How do we sit with what we are seeing and hearing?’ and ‘How might we move beyond grief?’’ Newspapers became a common material for them – referencing news and the notion of global legacy. The four artists found comfort in talking about ‘The News’ together and about different processes they were exploring and adopting. At that time, all four were Canberra-based. Hassan has since relocated to Adelaide but continued producing works for the show – and has taken a leading role pulling it all together.

John Pratt says that, for him, “overwhelmed is too strong a word, but we come into contact continuously with ‘The News’ as a field, pulled into a mode of distress. If you’re empathetic to some of the things that are happening, it’s hard to contend with or accommodate.” His work seeks to juxtapose natural elements, digital codes and media as a way of exploring the impact of technology on the way we understand our place in the world.

Pratt has contributed woodcut and collage pieces.

John Pratt – Passage, woodcut and collage work, 2025.

Kati Gorgenyi says she found herself in long periods of avoidance, when she just could not bear seeing and hearing about the state of the world, destruction from all directions and the way people in power present themselves, and how the media reports. She then began playing with newspapers – altering the material, making sculptures, and painting with an encaustic medium. She recycled, reformed and reshaped the material seeking to create an alternative environment.

Gorgenyi’s contributions are wax, pigment and newspaper pieces plus an installation of pots, newspapers and bamboo constructions. Seeing a small and peaceful part the outside world through the window behind her installation was somehow incongruous.

Kati Gorgenyi – Beyond 3 – wax, pigment, newspaper, 2026 (installation shot – Brian Rope)

Kati Gorgenyi – Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow – Installation: Pots, newspaper, bamboo, glue, 2026

Kati Gorgenyi – Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow? (installation shot showing outside world behind – Brian Rope)

Ujala Aftab is a watercolour and textile artist who has been working with pattern and repetition, embroidering on transfer prints of newspapers. On her Instagram account, she describes her artwork very simply as Experimental Embroidery Art.

Aftab is showing four mixed media pieces.

Ujala Aftab – Detail of Weariness – Mixed media: embroidery on canvas with acrylic and ink, 2024.

Toni Hassan also speaks about the news. “It enters us, the drama, the conflict. It can change us, as stories do. I have, for some years, been thinking about ways to express the impacts and how art can help me make sense of human history over time. I wanted to go beyond doomsday narratives, to something perhaps richer. I’d also become increasingly intentional about reducing my news consumption, after being a journalist and opinion writer for many years. Drawing became an accessible way to make sense of things, begin to frame history and my place in it, and also meditate on the themes that surfaced. Rocks became a motif for the heaviness of the world and ancientness.”

Hassan contributes a range of coloured pencil on paper artworks. They are complex and need thorough exploration to maximise the impact each has on us, just as the barrage of news and commentary from both traditional and social media that surrounds us every day also impacts us.

Toni Hassan – The grief and sense of loss that I often attribute to a failure in my personality is actually a feeling of emptiness, where a beautiful and strange otherness should be encountered / A short history of alienation, pencil on paper, 2024

Top: Too much to chew (information without integration frustrates wisdom) – pencil on paper, 2026
Bottom: The woman who ate too much news – pencil on paper, 2026
(Installation shot by Brian Rope of two works by Toni Hassan)

This is an exhibition well worth visiting to thoroughly explore the messages conveyed.

This review is also available on the Canberra Critics Circle blog.

Between What Remains

Visual Arts Exhibition Review

Between What Remains | Hilary Wardhaugh and David Manley

Belconnen Arts Centre |  27 March – 17 May 2026

The 2024 Canberra City News Artist of the Year, Hilary Wardhaugh, has again produced a wonderful collection of artworks – this time for a joint exhibition with a friend from their teenage years in Belconnen. Their surroundings influenced the visual elements they both would later use to convey their ideas and responses to the places they experienced as artists.

David Manley has also contributed great imagery for this exhibition. His artworks often are constructed pieces – architectural models and dioramas. The two artists complement each other.

Between What Remains reflects on the lives of the two artists and their shared artistic vision. They have come together in this exhibition to present conceptually aligned bodies of work.

Manley photographically explores architectural models and historical sites that have been marked by violence. The profound influence past events and experiences have on the present and future of individuals and societies, the overwhelming nature of media in our lives today, and the rapid, decisive and forceful application of actions underpin his constructed trauma-scapes. In those quiet, speculative spaces, memories linger and collapse into the present.

Wardhaugh’s series The Disconnect also inhabits the territory of temporal rupture, but from a post-documentary urban landscape perspective. Exploring disconnection and the categorisation of the natural world in our urban landscapes, the work uses visual portrayals to contemplate puzzling things.

Curator Alexander Boynes wonderful essay in the catalogue suggests this reunion of the two artists in a renewed dialogue is shaped by their shared beginnings in Belconnen. He tells us that the developed photography practices of both artists have led to them viewing landscapes and architecture as sites of memory, rupture and return not simply as subjects.

All 21 works draw us in to stand before them, first looking closely at the elements contained in them, then thinking about the messages they are intended to convey. Messages about ecological forces, climate change, impacts on biodiversity, the consequences of human presence, the traumatic impacts, and their own perceptions and views about our responsibilities in our world.

Manley’s High Rise shows us a huge concrete edifice improbably hovering high over the surface below. We wonder how it could possibly have moved into that position, apparently weightless despite its size and composition. How it could be so light as to float there?

High Rise, 2023. 1000mm x 1000mm. Framed pigment print – David Manley

Post-Traumatic Urbanist #2 Shows me a complex structure which might have been part of a long-gone urban settlement in what is now a barren landscape. Manley himself and others viewing the image may see something quite different.

Post-traumatic Urbanist #2, 2017. 500mm x 500mm. Framed pigment print – David Manley

Zoomorphic Cement Structure is another delightful piece. Seen from a distance it seemed to me that somehow a large cement block had moved right heading away from its purpose as a key support for the block above. Moving closer revealed I was wrong. A little research since has told me that zoomorphic architecture refers to the design and construction of buildings inspired by the forms and characteristics of animals. It embraces fluidity, dynamism, and a connection to nature. Perhaps my first interpretation resulted from fluidity.

Zoomorphic Cement Structure, 2013, 1250mm x 1000mm. Framed pigment print – David Manley

Wardhaugh’s pieces are diverse, but also complementary. Landscapes reveal terrains that have been significantly impacted by environmental stress and by decisions made, or not made, by those responsible for particular locations. In The Life of a roadside bush, the bush is a lone piece of nature in urban Queanbeyan’s concrete surroundings.

The Life of a roadside bush, 2025. 850mm x 1200mm. Framed pigment print – Hilary Wardhaugh

Danger! Nature is another most interesting piece. I invite you to look closely and interpret what you see for yourself. What are we looking at? Is it all real? Was the yellow vertical structure which neatly divides the image in two actually there in that landscape?

Danger! Nature, 2014. 850mm x 1200mm. Framed pigment print – Hilary Wardhaugh

Coercively Controlled confronts us with a view of trees being forced to grow as someone has determined they should, rather than allowing nature to take its course.

Coercively Controlled, 2025. 850mm x 1200mm. Framed pigment print – Hilary Wardhaugh

Succulent and Potty is another piece that demands our investigation. It is not simply a potted plant with thick, water-storing leaves sitting atop an interesting structure. Behind it is what might be a tall building under construction covered with translucent material.

Succulent and Potty, 2023. 850mm x 1200mm. Framed pigment print – Hilary Wardhaugh

Both artists have effectively used the cathartic power of image-making in a world marked by the human cost of disconnection, ambivalence and disruption.

This review is also available on the Canberra Critics Circle blog. A shorter review has also been published in Canberra City News.