State of the Art (Fair)

Now in its ninth edition, this year’s Sydney Contemporary Art Fair welcomes 114 exhibitors, featuring more than 500 artists, at the iconic Carriageworks. Following the success of Works on Paper in 2024, Director Zoe Paulsen says, “This year’s edition marks an exciting evolution and significant step forward with the launch of Photo Sydney. Our dynamic new sector will bring critical focus to the richness and diversity of contemporary photography, offering a dedicated platform for established and emerging voices in the medium.” The four sections of the fair now comprise Galleries, Works on Paper, Future and Photo Sydney.

Neil Frazer, Nexus, 2025, acrylic paint, canvas, 160 x 300 cm

OLSEN Gallery is one of fifteen galleries presenting works in Photo Sydney, with selected works from George Byrne’s 2024 series Synthetica. In Byrne’s photography, things aren’t always what they appear to be. Landscapes become dreamscapes and the traditional bounds of photography are reimagined and reconstructed. Byrne digitally knits together scenes from his hometown of Los Angeles, USA, dubbing the results as “anti-landscape photography.” In the process, Byrne puts a contemporary twist on the New Topographics photography movement, developing a language that is elusive, yet familiar.

OLSEN Gallery is also presenting in the Galleries with new works by Louise Olsen. Exploring the relationship between form and colour, Olsen’s lyrical paintings champion natural linen with sparse splashes of earthy hues that pulse with a spontaneous energy. The gallery will also present a selection of secondary market works through its 2024 initiative, 63 Jersey Art Sales, featuring Brett Whiteley, Keith Haring, John Olsen, and Nicholas Harding.

George Byrne, Clock Tower, 2024 photographic pigment, archival cotton, 190 x 235 cm

3:33 Art Projects, a corporate curatorial initiative, returns to Sydney Contemporary with a powerhouse show from Neil Frazer and Joanna Braithwaite. Frazer’s expansive paintings are visceral encounters: raw, powerful and emotional landscapes that leave viewers feeling insignificant, a reminder of the ocean’s sheer unyielding force. Frazer paints with a palpable energy; large gestural marks sweep over the canvas, appearing to be guided by the oceans themselves. Frazer is not afraid to spray his emotions across his works as the waves peak and fall. In Nexus, 2025, the waves reach a crescendo. A wall of water is laboured over—the lips of the wave curl and collapse into one another, swells brew in the background, poised to begin the cycle again, as a final cascade of whitewash erupts. The work is contrasted by a serene sky and perfect horizon. Chaos and calm go hand-in-hand.

On a recent visit to the Australian reptile park, Joanna Braithwaite encountered a large python—slow, sluggish and subdued. This experience prompted her to begin research into snakes. While some people fear serpentine creatures, many cultures and religions revere them: in Ancient Egypt the asp was a motif of royalty and protection. In Ancient Greece the staff of Asclepius had a snake curled around it and remains the symbol of health and medicine. The Rainbow Serpent in Australian First Nations cultures represents creation and the interconnectedness of all things. And in the Chinese Zodiac, the snake symbolises wisdom and good luck.

In Braithwaite’s new Precious Nature series, golden snakes are rendered not as threatening, but as enticing. They are almost as tempting as the gems they appear to be guarding. Coiled around precious stones, they too have been seduced. Braithwaite references the biblical tale of temptation—Eve and the apple—as a metaphor of desire, knowledge and consequence. In an instant, Pant Man I and Pant Man II, both 2025, incite a chuckle, although Braithwaite adds “it should never be at the snakes expense!” The works are a sly jab at the association of snakes to certain slippery human personalities. They offer a perspective of the snake as both villain and muse for those of a certain temperament. Braithwaite offers a witty perspective on snakes—in her hands they are not evil, but complex, alluring and a projection of human folly.

Joanna Braithwaite, Precious Nature I, 2025, oil paint, canvas, 145 x 194 cm

Keeping with this year’s NAIDOC Week theme, The Next Generation, Utopia Art Sydney is presenting Papunya Tula Artists— father and son, Ronnie Tjampitjinpa and Aubrey Tjangala, and brothers, Bobby West Tjupurrula and John West Tjupurrula.

Bobby West Tjupurrula traces the sacred travels of the Tingari men across desert landscapes. These vast canvases course with the energy of sandhills and salt lakes. The lines of Untitled, 2025, pulsate with a deep knowledge and rhythms that hum. John West Tjupurrula, both artist and ranger, brings a new aerial perspective to the same terrain, after taking a helicopter trip a few years ago: “seeing my Country from above changed my style, and now I paint my Country that way.”

John West Tjupurrula, Untitled, 2025, acrylic paint, linen, 183 x 153 cm. Photographed by Allana Mcafee

Aubrey Tjangala, son of Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, builds on his father’s visual legacy with dynamic black-and-white body paint designs, detailing the traces made by snakes who were forced underground by lightning strikes. A founding member of the Papunya Tula Artists, the late Ronnie Tjampitjinpa’s own bold geometric forms depict the journey of a Tingari man, and the soakage of the site of Pinari.

Brisbane-based gallery Mitchell Fine Art is presenting a tightly curated conversation between Mirra Whale and Steve Lopes.  Whale’s still lifes are mediative and delicate. They are intimate, and appreciative of the beauty in the everyday. In Hawkesbury River (Saints not Sinners), 2025, Whale paints an assortment of ingredients placed on a wooden table: a gutted fish, salt, soy sauce, lemons and oysters. There is an overwhelming sense of nostalgia—I am transported to summers spent with my family in Tasmania, the smell of butter heating in a pan nearby to cook the fish and the tang of lemons. Whale captures memories in the most innocent sense.

Lopes’ atmospheric landscapes are emotional and complex. They are psychological—Lopes will allude to an idea or a sentiment but ultimately the viewer is left to decipher the work. Human occupation of space and time is deeply considered. A placement of an ambiguous figure in a work, rusted boots left behind by a nameless presence, see Boots n’ All, 2025. Lopes paints through a lens of identity and self-inquiry.

Steve Lopes, Boots n’ All, 2025, oil paint, canvas, 53 x 55 cm

SABBIA presents the aptly title Strange Alchemy that will unite glass artists Tom Moore and Nick Mount. A somewhat unlikely duo, as the title suggests, both artists treat glass as a visual language—an opportunity to push and pull on the traditions of glass blowing. Mount’s incredibly disciplined approach is rich with Venetian techniques. Moore pushes hard, with his whimsical assemblages that are steeped in surrealism and pop culture. Both artists are united by techniques such as encalmo and zanferico—demonstrated through poignant examples of how their individual language has developed.

Tom Moore, Romantic Journey with TriEids, 2025, hot joined blown glass, solid glass, 25 x 28 x 14 cm

This presentation of Mount’s marks an exciting new development in the artist’s practice, with wall-mounted sculptures that intricately fuse constructed metal with blown and cold-worked glass. Mount’s #001, 2025, has an incredible, delicate balance that appears to defy physics with the minimal points of contact. A truly impressive feat of engineering.

Nanda\Hobbs will be presenting works in the both Galleries and Works on Paper. In the paper section, Nanda\Hobbs has curated a group that champions the medium and its versatility. Lottie Consalvo paints with an urgency—somewhat of an ode to the immediacy of paper. Confident, yet impulsive, the works encourage us to embrace what lies beyond. Zoologist and naturalist Roger Swainston captures the wonder of marine life with incredibly detailed and complex portraits. These taxidermy-like renderings bring viewers face to face with the stark realities that wildlife is facing due to the devastations of our oceans. Katherine Hattam’s collaged still lifes are deeply personal. Pages of novels are used to construct a table in The Romantic Imagination, 2025, with their deconstructed spines piled high. Threads of domesticity, feminism and family are woven through these snippets—a carefully constructed narrative of identity and memory. Nanda\Hobbs will also be showing paper works by Jody Graham, Kathryn Ryan and Yoshio Honjo.

Roger Swainston, Crystal Crab, 2004, acrylic paint, paper, 36 x 70 cm

In Galleries, the Nanda\Hobbs group presentation continues with artists that have a “fascination with paint.” Showcasing works by James Drinkwater, Loribelle Spirovski, Marie Mansfield, Caroline Zilinsky, Peter Gardiner and Brett McMahon. Spirovski’s works map psychological landscapes, often with eyes painted in photorealism and the bodies morphing into abstracted expressions. The eyes ground her artwork: a mediative moment in the disquiet. Mansfield has carefully curated a quiet but commanding presence in her works. Fleeting moments, that might otherwise be lost or forgotten, are captured and cared for. Viewers are left with a trace of palpable energy, the feeling of what was or what could have been.

It is always encouraging to see new galleries establishing themselves in the Australian art market, even more so when, within less than a year of opening, the gallery features in FUTURE. This is the case for VELVET LOBSTER, presenting artists Shanti Shea An and Erin Murphy. Shea An poses the question of reality within an image. Her works evolve from film, literature and art theory—fused together and then broken down, sometimes doubled and sometimes shrouded, they leave the viewer with an eerie sense of familiarity that they have cause to doubt. Murphy, on the contrary, takes on a literal subject matter, with pragmatic titles making up her oeuvre. The artist is interested in “frank and factual” images—and in making these otherwise awkward scenes appear comical. I can’t help but smile when I look at Pig, 2025, a work that features a large pig with a Van Gogh inspired backdrop—it’s so simple in its subject matter and yet endearing.

Erin Murphy, Pig, 2025, oil paint, canvas, 87 x 101 cm

So come one, come all. Get excited, grab a glass of champagne, some friends and head to Carriageworks to experience a vibrant showcasing of Australia’s best contemporary art. 

EVENT
Sydney Contemporary
11–14 September 2025
Carriageworks, Sydney

This is an edited extract from an article published in Artist Profile issue 72

Images courtesy of the artists, Sydney Contemporary, Sydney; OLSEN Gallery, Sydney; 3:33 Art Projects, Sydney; Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney; Mitchel Fine Art, Brisbane; SABBIA, Sydney; Nanda/Hobbs, Sydney; and VELVET LOBSTER, Sydney