Sydney Contemporary Unveils Curated Highlights from its 100+ Gallery Lineup for its 10th Edition

Spanning major international presentations, landmark First Nations works, standout solo and group shows, and 19 galleries that have exhibited since the beginning.

Sydney, Australia: Sydney Contemporary, Australasia’s leading contemporary art fair, returns to Carriageworks from 3–6 September 2026 for its 10th anniversary edition. Presented in partnership with MA Financial Group, the Fair today unveils gallery booth highlights, with more than 100 galleries travelling from across Australia, New Zealand, Asia, and the United Kingdom to participate in the Fair, presenting work by more that 500 artists from 33 countries.

Over a decade on, Sydney Contemporary continues to attract the country’s most respected galleries, with the majority of exhibitors returning year after year – a testament to the Fair’s enduring role as Australasia’s premier platform for contemporary art. Showcasing the breadth of contemporary art across painting, sculpture, photography, installation, works on paper and new media, the Fair offers audiences and collectors at every stage the opportunity to discover significant new work by leading and emerging artistic voices, with all works available for acquisition.

Sydney Contemporary Founder and Co-Owner Tim Etchells said: “As we celebrate our 10th edition, we’re delighted to showcase exceptional presentations by over 100 exhibitors, many of whom have been with us since the very first edition of the Fair. Sydney Contemporary has grown into one of the region’s most anticipated events and a vital part of our cultural ecosystem, a genuine meeting ground for collectors, artists, gallerists, curators, advisors and new buyers alike, and I am proud of the role it plays in supporting living artists by generating the highest concentration of art sales in Australasia each year. We can’t wait to welcome visitors through the doors in September, for what is shaping up to be our most exciting program yet.”

International Presentations

International galleries and artists continue to be a major feature of Sydney Contemporary, bringing global perspectives to Australia’s biggest week of contemporary art.

• Annandale Galleries (Sydney / Gadigal Country) presents work by leading South African artist William Kentridge, including bronze and aluminum sculptural works, a series of new and masterful prints, and a $1 million sculpture titled Goat.

• Gow Langsford (Auckland / Tāmaki Makaurau) brings together internationally recognised artists, including South Korean artist Lee Bae, exhibiting in Australia for the first time, and Yuki Kihara, who represented New Zealand at the 2022 Venice Biennale. Kihara presents Woven Memories (2026), featuring embroidered pandanus mats created with the Moata’a Aualuma Community in Samoa. The gallery will also present new works by Tony Cragg, Gregor Kregar, Colin McCahon, Bosco Sodi, and Grace Wright.

• Messums (London) presents works by acclaimed British sculptors Laurence Edwards and Nicola Hicks and work by painter Tyga Helme who has been supported on residency in Australia. Edwards’ casts bronze figures that meld humanity, nature and time, while Hicks’ expressive sculptures and works on paper draw a closer liminal space between the animate and the object through animal world, mythology and reflecting our shared conditions.

• PAULNACHE (Gisborne / Tūranganui-a-Kiwa) presents a solo installation by sculptor Glen Hayward, whose wood carvings of security cameras and signage invite audiences to reflect on observation and self-consciousness in the digital age, where the viewer becomes the subject.

• PARC Editions (Seoul) presents contemporary Korean artists Taeim Kwak, Ki Kim, Ava An and Yvonne Boag, whose works are rooted in Korea’s strong paper and printmaking culture, while opening outwards through practices that connect Korea with broader international contexts. The presentation approaches paper as a living material that can be transformed and form a dialogue between craft, image and process.

• Gallery LNL (Sydney / Gadigal Country) presents Lament, a group exhibition bringing together Australian and South Korean artists in a cross-cultural dialogue on mourning, memory and loss. Featuring Kevin Connor, Kim Syyoung, Koo Bohnchang, Gary Deirmendjian and Sassy Park, the exhibition explores shared traditions of remembrance through works created predominantly in black.

Landmark First Nations Presentations

First Nations art anchors this year’s edition, from historic works to major new works. Some highlights include:

• Alcaston Gallery (Melbourne / Naarm) presents Binygurr Wirrpanda, Betty Kuntiwa Pumani and Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori, bringing together significant First Nations artists with new works celebrating Country, culture and enduring artistic legacies.

• A Secondary Eye (Sydney / Gadigal Country) presents a sculpture-focused booth of works from Far North Queensland, including rare historical pieces from the First Nations community of Aurukun made before, during and after the landmark Wik Decision native title ruling in 1996, alongside a selection of works by renowned Torres Strait Islander artist Ken Thaiday Snr.

• D Lan Galleries (Melbourne / Naarm, Sydney / Gadigal Country, New York) presents a rare survey of works by acclaimed Ngaanyatjarra artist Cliff Reid, alongside a secondary market presentation of works from the Estate of Tiger Palpatja (c.1920–2012), and significant works by Gunybi Ganambarr, Noŋgirrŋa Marawili and Paddy Bedford, celebrating senior First Nations artists whose practices carry enduring cultural narratives across Australia.

• First Nations practice also features across the Fair through galleries including Annandale Galleries (Sydney / Gadigal Country) with new metalworks by renowned Yolŋu artist Gunybi Ganambarr; Art Leven (formerly Cooee Art) (Sydney / Gadigal Country) presenting work by acclaimed First Nations artists; APY Art Centre Collective (Adelaide / Tarntanya, Melbourne / Naarm, Sydney / Gadigal Country) showcasing early career artists from the APY Lands; Everywhen Art (Shoreham / Bunurong Country), with Janice Stanley, Susan Peters Wangimirr Nampitjin, Janet Dreamer and Melanie Koolmatrie exploring stories of Water Country; and Utopia Art Sydney (Sydney / Gadigal Country), highlighting the next generation of Papunya Tula artists including John West Tjupurrula, Irene Nungurrayi and Angelina Nungurrayi alongside other leading artists.

Solo And Duo Artist Booths

The Galleries sector features a strong selection of solo and duo presentations, offering focused insights into some of the most compelling artists working today.

Neon Parc (Melbourne / Naarm) presents a solo exhibition of eleven new photographs by Darren Sylvester. Built around his signature studio sets, cinematic effects and high-key colour, the series evokes the visual language of pop videos and luxury advertising, where emotion is engineered rather than felt.

● Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery (Sydney / Gadigal Country) is delighted to present two leading Australian artists Jenny Watson and Mia Boe in a dynamic exhibition that spans generations. Among the gallery’s first represented artists, Jenny Watson will present significant historical works alongside new paintings, while recently represented Mia Boe debuts a new body of work that draws on personal history and broader colonial narratives. Both artists explore notions of self-hood, through interior worlds and dream-like imagery, each with a remarkably distinct voice evident in their visual symbology.

● Jacob Hoerner Galleries (Melbourne / Naarm) presents the luminous abstract paintings of Brett Weir alongside rare 1970s masterpieces by Andrew Sibley, bringing together a leading contemporary Australian painter with one of the country’s most significant avant-garde artists in a compelling cross-generational presentation.

● STATION (Melbourne / Naarm, Sydney / Gadigal Country) features a dual presentation of works by Laith McGregor and Dane Lovett, bringing together two artists whose practices explore perception, observation and the poetics of everyday experience. STATION’s presentation at Sydney Contemporary highlights drawing and painting as expanded fields for perceptual and conceptual inquiry, inviting a slowed and immersive viewing experience at the Fair.

● Sutton Gallery (Melbourne / Naarm) presents recent large-scale works on paper by New Zealand artist Peter Robinson alongside new paintings by Sydney-based artist Karen Black. Robinson’s latest works follow his recent residency at the Musée Gassendi in southern France, while Black presents a new body of previously unseen paintings.

Group Presentations

Standout group presentations among the Galleries sector, some highlights include:

● NO FANTASY (Melbourne / Naarm) presents Rupture, which brings together artists Yhonnie Scarce, Johnathon World Peace Bush, Ali Tahayori, Jackson Farley, and Ellen Dahl, to examine how personal and shared histories remain embedded within landscapes, objects and the collective psyche. Each artist interrogates the concept of place not as passive ground, but as an active archive through which history, culture, migration, memory, and identity are continually negotiated.

● Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert (Sydney / Gadigal Country) will present a curated group show, anchored by a major new commission by Angela Valamanesh created specifically for the fair – a monumental glazed ceramic necklace that cascades from the wall, forming the exhibition’s centrepiece.

● Arthouse Gallery (Sydney / Gadigal Country) presents new works by fifteen leading Australian artists — including Belinda Fox, Clifford How, Amelia Lynch, Colin Pennock, Hobie Porter and Joshua Yeldham — developed through two creative expeditions to the remote Fowlers Gap Research Station in far northwest New South Wales. Engaging with the expansive desert environment that has long inspired generations of artists, scientists and knowledge-keepers, these new works reflect a profound respect for Country and an acute awareness of the accelerating impacts of climate change.

● LON Gallery (Melbourne / Naarm) presents a curated exhibition of works by Stephen Benwell, Adrienne Gaha and Kate Ellis. Working across painting, ceramics and sculpture, the artists draw on the traditions of figuration and classicism while reimagining the body through contemporary perspectives, transforming familiar forms into sites of ambiguity and renewed meaning.

● MARS Gallery (Melbourne / Naarm) presents Radical Joy, bringing together The Huxleys, Kohl Tyler and Kenny Pittock in a presentation built around the necessity of joy in difficult times, each artist drawing on the playfulness and sincerity of their practice.

● Sullivan+Strumpf (Sydney / Gadigal Country, Melbourne / Naarm, Singapore) presents a new body of work by Paris-based Australian painter Gregory Hodge, and a preview of Tony Albert’s forthcoming solo exhibition with work paying tribute to Albert Namatjira. Alongside this, the gallery also shows new works by acclaimed artists including Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, Alex Seton, Michael Lindeman, Lara Merrett, Julia Gutman, Sam Cranstoun, Tim Silver, Gemma Smith, Dawn Ng and Marion Abraham.

Futures

One of the Fair’s most exciting destinations, Futures showcases emerging galleries and artists at pivotal moments in their careers, offering visitors the chance to discover exceptional new talent before the wider market.

● C. Gallery (Melbourne / Naarm) presents a dual show pairing ceramic works by Ben Mazey and Nic Fern, whose works convey similar visions of the medium from entirely different conceptual starting points. Both bring humour into their investigations of how our narratives are built.

● Nasha Gallery (Sydney / Gadigal Country) presents Bridget Stehli, whose evocative practice explores memory, materiality and perception through contemplative works that balance abstraction with subtle references to the natural world.

● First time exhibitors in the sector include LAILA (Sydney / Gadigal Country), presenting paintings by Sydney-based painter Luke Brennan, that capture the tension between the microscopic and the cosmic, and SYRUP CONTEMPORARY (Sydney) presenting Haines + Hinterding alongside Eleni Ioakimidis, bringing together expanded image-making, painting and installation in a presentation exploring time, materiality and the act of looking.

● Five Walls Gallery (Melbourne / Naarm) presents Max Lawrence White and Shuhei Fukuda, whose practices push the boundaries of sculpture and materiality; Jennings Kerr (Robertson / Gundungurra & Dharawal Country) brings together Harriet Goodall and Ochre Lawson in a dialogue between landscape, ecology and abstraction; while VELVET LOBSTER (Sydney / Gadigal Country) showcases Mungo Howard’s playful sculptural works that transform familiar forms into unexpected encounters.

Photo Sydney

Returning for its second year, Photo Sydney reaffirms the growing prominence of contemporary photography, with presentations from galleries, artists, and photography organisations across Australia. Some highlights from Photo Sydney include:

● Caterina Pacialeo (Sydney / Gadigal Country) unveils a new series of large-scale cyanotype works, examining the intersection of photographic history and contemporary astronomical discovery. Unified by a deep Prussian blue field, produced through traditional cyanotype chemistry, the works trace and abstract data derived from contemporary astronomical observation, reflecting on humanity’s enduring engagement with the cosmos.

● Christopher Ireland (Sydney / Gadigal Country) reveals a new body of work, revisiting the subjects from a portrait series in 2008, eighteen years on, displayed alongside each other. Documenting widowed women whose husbands died from asbestos-related disease, the series traces how grief changes over time and how lives continue beyond loss, with memory settling into the body and identity.

● Cybele Malinowski (Sydney / Gadigal Country) presents Deep Fake, a new photographic series that turns the lens on celebrity impersonators, capturing the everyday lives of performers as their alter egos – from Cher to Prince to Marilyn Monroe – and questioning what, and who, is real. In a time of AI-generated media, DEEP FAKE reveals that the most profound and unsettling simulations are still flesh and blood.

Works On Paper

A Fair within the Fair, the Works on Paper sector showcases the best of national and international contemporary works on paper — watercolours, drawings, artist books, prints and editions. One of the most accessible entry points for new collectors, and a rich hunting ground for seasoned collectors. Some highlights in the Works on Paper sector include:

● SYRUP CONTEMPORARY’s (Sydney / Gadigal Country) booth features Mike Parr and Ruth Marbun, who each approach the body as a site of self-reflection and political agency. Marbun, a radical presence in Jakarta’s contemporary art scene, manipulates watercolour to evoke transitory states of memory and presence, while Parr shows prints from recent etchings alongside never-before-seen works that trace bodily inscription through the processes of printmaking.

● Australian Print Workshop (Melbourne / Naarm) presents new original prints by leading contemporary artists including Heather B. Swann, Megan Cope, eX de Medici, Caroline Rothwell, Lisa Waup and Louise Weaver, alongside works by Patricia Piccinini, Danie Mellor, Nusra Latif Qureshi and David Sequeira, showcasing the breadth of contemporary Australian printmaking.

● Onespace (Brisbane / Meanjin) presents new works by two significant First Nations printmakers based in Cairns: Brian Robinson and Teho Ropeyarn. Robinson’s 2026 series of prints, Abundance of Country, derives from his recently unveiled sculpture Floriate, celebrating Queensland’s Seven Watersheds through sculptural forms that evoke river systems. Ropeyarn presents a series of works featuring organic forms and layered compositions, reflecting the seasonal rhythms of Cape York shaped by lived experience of travelling across Country.

For more information visit  sydneycontemporary.com.au