12 Art Exhibitions To See in and Around Perth in 2026

In need of a new perspective? This summer and autumn, Perth is hosting an array of exhibitions by local and international artists that are sure have you seeing things differently. There are long-running exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA), such as the irreverent Paola Pivi exhibition, and more solemn showings like Melissa Sandy’s The Void, as part of Perth Festival. 

There’s beauty too, like in Pippin Drysdale’s rainbow of ceramics and Brad Rimmer’s documentary-style photos of the Wheatbelt region. Whatever you’re seeking, these free exhibitions in and around Perth might hold the answer. 

Growth

Broadsheet photographer Danica Zuks is presenting a series of photos, sculptures, video work and native plants in their debut solo exhibition at Zig Zag Gallery. They ask viewers to consider what’s beautiful and what’s harmful across the various materials, from plastic milk crates to Geraldton waxflowers. Zuks’s colour-drenched images show the symbiosis of the natural and artificial, including striking photos of eucalyptus, karkalla (pigface) and other endemic plants appearing to grow through shopping carts and plastic baskets. 

Growth runs from January 16 to February 8 at Zig Zag Gallery. 

HALE TENGER / BORDERS / BORDERS

BORDERS / BORDERS is the first museum survey of renowned Turkish artist Hale Tenger, whose poetic yet politically charged installations span three decades. Deeply rooted in her experience of growing up during and after Turkey’s 1980 military coup, Tenger explores the psychic and physical landscapes shaped by authoritarianism, conflict and exclusion. She uses sound, image and sculpture to construct immersive, affective environments. Her pieces depict the tension between violence and gentleness, history and memory, presence and erasure. The result is a body of work that doesn’t resolve so much as linger, inviting reflection on how power, belonging and resistance are felt and navigated.

HALE TENGER / BORDERS / BORDERS runs until February 8, 2026, at the Art Gallery of Western Australia.

Pippin Drysdale: Infinite Terrain

Fremantle-based ceramicist Pippin Drysdale has been working with clay for over 40 years, and at AGWA you can see 400 of her hand-carved vessels and sculptures in a major retrospective. It includes perfectly domed porcelain mounds painted in sunset oranges; delicate pastel vases with tiny bases and bulbous middles; and fingerprint-like curves etched into the clay that look like lines drawn in the sand. Curator Isobel Wise says the aesthetics of Drysdale’s ceramics are deeply rooted in the Australian landscape. While they’re individually mesmerising, together they’re otherworldly. 

Pippin Drysdale: Infinite Terrain runs until April 6 at the Art Gallery of Western Australia. 

Paola Pivi – I don’t like it, I love it

Vibrant, joyful, utterly bonkers. The epic Paola Pivi exhibition at AGWA is surreal, super-sized and so good you have to see it more than once. The Hawaii-based Italian artist likes to play with perceptions of reality, often with funny artwork titles written by her collaborator-husband, Karma Culture Brothers. In this exhibition, Pivi covers the walls with slogans in a font she designed, reading “Free Humans” and “Please don’t get a divorce”. Covering all three levels of the gallery, I don’t like it, I love it carries serious messages among the mystifying and marvellous creations. For instance, her dancing polar bears – decorated in blue, red and pink feathers – represent the fragility of the climate crisis. Other works, like Love addict – 999 trays filled with colourful liquid – are simply beautiful to behold. 

Paola Pivi – I don’t like it, I love it runs until April 26 at the Art Gallery of Western Australia.

Attachment Styles: Modes of Belonging in Modern and Contemporary Art

With pieces plucked from AGWA’s 18,000-strong collection, Attachment Styles is a curious exhibition themed around therapy talk. Whether you identify as “anxiously avoidant” or “securely attached”, there’ll be a painting here that speaks to your soul. Frederick McCubbin’s Down on his luck, for example, has a hint of self-soothing. Stewart MacFarlane’s The border seems to depict jealousy or sibling rivalry. Then there’s John Nash’s The Bathers, with its lone individuals sitting in close proximity to others. Whichever one you relate to most, it’s clear these artists understand our deep-seated need to feel seen.

Attachment Styles: Modes of Belonging in Modern and Contemporary Art runs until October 11 at the Art Gallery of Western Australia.

Awakening Histories

Before British invasion, First Nations people in Australia had an ongoing relationship with the Makassan seafarers of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. In this Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (Pica) exhibition, a number of artists from Australia and Indonesia reflect on the importance of this cultural exchange, including the plants they traded and the ideas they shared. Artists include WA’s Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, Makassar-based photographer and writer Aziziah Diah Aprilya, and northeast Arnhem Land collective the Mulka Project.

Awakening Histories runs from February 6 to March 29 at Central Galleries. 

Painting Itself / 绘画本身

Pica has invited five painters from Hong Kong, Malaysia, London, Shanghai and Singapore to flip the long-held rules of European and American painting to instead make paintings “through an Asian lens”. Their works are instilled with internal struggles and moods and created using painting practices from East and Southeast Asia. Artists include painters Jon Chan and Un Cheng, plus painter and performance artist Tang Dixin. 

Painting Itself / 绘画本身 runs from February 6 to March 29 at West End Gallery. 

Brad Rimmer | Loom of the Land

Contemporary art photographer Brad Rimmer has captured the beauty, isolation and vastness of WA’s Wheatbelt region in a series of photos taken over two decades. Rimmer grew up in the region, and each image carries an emotional tie to the place he once called home. In Silence, for example, you’ll see a sunglasses-wearing teen sitting atop a Commodore and an image of an empty tyre swing hanging over a dusty yard. In addition to photos from Silence, Nature Boy, and Nowhere Near, there are two new video works that focus on the stillness of abandoned Wheatbelt town halls, no longer hubs of community connection. 

Brad Rimmer | Loom of the Land runs from February 7 to April 26 at Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre. 

Pascale Giorgi | Worst Hits

One person’s trash is another person’s treasure, right? For Fremantle-based artist Pascale Giorgi, her artistic trash will become the central focus of a solo exhibition themed around the mistakes, leftovers and waste that come with being a multidisciplinary artist 10 years into her career. Worst Hits will reimagine Giorgi’s studio trash into new sculptural works. Look out for humorous vegetable shapes, replica neoclassical sculptures reminiscent of her Sculpture by the Sea artwork, and other motifs such as a mug with a baroque clown face.

Pascale Giorgi | Worst Hits runs from February 8 to April 26 at Goolugatup Heathcote.

Under Waters

Step into an aquatic themed installation at Perth Festival, where your body movements will trigger digital marine shell forms to move through water, blobbing through digital coral and sand. Under Waters is the creation of Wiradjuri Scottish artist April Phillips, who fuses science, poetry and First Nations knowledge into her artworks. Phillips is the founder of the Friends with Computers collective, which uses digital technologies as tools for art making, and this interactive installation will live at Pica as part of its season one program, before touring regional WA later this year. 

Under Waters runs from February 19 to March 29 at Studio 2, Pica. 

Melissa Sandy | The Void

Yindjibarndi artist Melissa Sandy shares a deeply personal series about grief, as part of Perth Festival. Sandy lost her aunt, Mrs A Sandy, who was also an artist and maternal figure in the community. Following years of slow and deliberate creative process, the Pilbara artist has made intricately patterned metallic paintings. They’re accompanied by audio-visual works and a documentary film created in Jirrayi/Mount Florence on the eastern fringes of Yindjibarndi Country. The Void is commissioned by Boorloo Contemporary, which is also showing a series of vibrant, provocative flags made by Kait James at East Perth Power Station (also part of the Perth Festival program). 

The Void runs from February 28 to March 28 at PS Art Space. 

Sculpture by the Sea

Sculpture by the Sea is returning to Perth in March for its 21st Western Australian exhibition. The 2025 WA iteration was cancelled due to a lack of federal funding and sorely missed in the local art scene. This year’s exhibition will include 70 pieces from renowned local and international sculptors dotted along the natural amphitheatre of Cottesloe Beach.

Sculpture by the Sea will run from March 6 to March 23 at Cottesloe Beach.