VAULT’s Editor-in-Chief Alison Kubler’s Must-See Guide to Sydney Contemporary 2025
Sydney Contemporary 2025 promises a carefully curated selection of Australasia’s contemporary art scene. From tactile, material-rich printmaking to soaring pastel flights and immersive installations, these exhibitions exemplify the fair’s capacity to connect collectors, artists, and galleries. VAULT’s Editor-in-Chief Alison Kubler highlights the standout presentations that cannot be missed!
Alcaston Gallery
Booth G01
At Sydney Contemporary 2025, Alcaston Gallery honours two iconic First Nations artists: Tiger Yaltangki (1973–2024) and Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori (c.1924–2015). Shown in dialogue, their works celebrate vibrancy, innovation, and enduring influence within Australian contemporary art. Yaltangki, a Yankunytjatjara artist from Indulkana on the APY Lands, created exuberant, vividly coloured paintings that blend Anangu spirit beings (Mamu), rock music, sci-fi, and pop motifs with his daily rhythms. His final year of paintings appears alongside large-scale guitar sculptures, shown for the first time since Rising: Shadow Spirit (2023). In addition, Alcaston presents an exclusive release of Gabori’s luminous canvases, offered with the artist’s Estate to mark the tenth anniversary of her passing, reaffirming her lasting impact.
Image credit: Tiger Yaltangki (1973-2024), Self Portrait, 2023, synthetic polymer paint on linen, 169 x 198 cm
CRITERIA | C. Gallery
Booth F02
C. Gallery is showing intriguing ceramics by Claudia Lau and Nic Fern at Sydney Contemporary 2025, proof that ceramics are still highly collectable. Represented by the gallery since early 2025, Fern is showing wall works and ceramics made from upcycled materials and stitchwork. Her practice interrogates consumerism, status, and marginalisation through reimagined Western imagery, evoking sustainability, resistance, and care. Meanwhile, Lau, who studied ceramics in Melbourne and Jingdezhen, expands traditional techniques with influences from Japanese material culture and the natural world.
Image credit: Nic Fern, Muses, Masters & Monster, 2025, glazed ceramic, 60 x 54 cm. Photo courtesy of Joshua Morris / Nic Fern.
Nanda\Hobbs
Booth E02 & B29
Nanda\Hobbs is showcasing two exhibitions that feature a group of painters whose work, in very different ways, questions why painting matters. James Drinkwater, whose work was recently acquired by the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid, displays his characteristic expressionist, lively paintings alongside Peter Gardiner’s masterful collaboration with ceramicist Niki McCann.The gallery is also exhibiting artworks on paper, which has always held a special place at Nanda\Hobbs, with a selection of six artists who explore the medium with remarkable depth and variety; Lottie Consalvo’s works are particularly intriguing. While the fair is running at Carriageworks, they are showing a group exhibition, New Romantics, in the gallery that features some greats, including Suzanne Archer, Katherine Hattam and Brett Whiteley.
Image credit: Peter Gardiner, Occlusion 1, 2025 oil on canvas, 60x40cm
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery
Booth G03
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery’s presentation is nothing short of powerhouse, uniting new works by some of Australia’s most significant contemporary voices including Del Kathryn Barton, Mia Boe, Daniel Boyd, Dale Frank, Bill Henson, Kirtika Kain, Dhambit Munuŋgurr, Tom Polo, Julie Rrap and Kaylene Whiskey. Together, these artists span generations and practices, yet share a commitment to pushing the possibilities of material, form and narrative. For Installations at Sydney Contemporary, Roslyn Oxley9 further commands attention with a large-scale work by Marley Dawson. It is a presentation that captures both legacy and experimentation, and is set to be a major drawcard of the fair.
Image credit: Mia Boe, Rip!, 2025, synthetic polymer on linen, 40 x 30 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney.
Stanley Street Gallery
Booth J10
Stanley Street Gallery brings the captivating works of Amy Dynan to Sydney Contemporary with Flight of the Sirens, a new body of work that reimagines the mythological siren as a meditation on transformation, freedom, and the untamed human spirit. Large-scale pastel paintings unfold as emotional cartographies, balancing stillness and wildness while exploring thresholds between inner and outer worlds. Dynan’s mastery of pastel layers offers immersive, luminous seascapes that invite the viewer to use the archetype of feminine sovereignty as a lens to reclaim their emotional selves.
Image credit: Amy Dynan, Over dark waters, 2025, pastel on paper, 100x150. Courtesy of the Artist.
1301SW + STARKWHITE
Booth G07
The joint presentation of 1301SW and STARKWHITE centres on “tracing” as both concept and practice. From following lineages to literal tracing of objects, the exhibition unites works by Andrew Beck, Tim Bučković, Diena Georgetti, Jonny Niesche, Kate Mosher Hall, Fiona Pardington, Anselm Reyle, Heather Straka, Jamie Te Heuheu, Jelena Telecki, and Mark Whalen. Each practice engages with gestures, patterns, and layered histories, offering a rich and contemplative survey of contemporary conceptualism.
Image credit: Tim Bučković, Untitled, 2025, oil on linen, 99 x 158cm.
STATION
Booth G06
STATION presents a program exploring alternative cosmologies, ancestral memory, and speculative imagination. Zac Langdon-Pole’s selection for the Installation Contemporary sector underscores the immersive quality of the works, which experiment with scale, materiality, and perception. Adam Lee and Clare Milledge complement this vision through explorations of myth, memory and materiality, inviting viewers to consider new ways of seeing and relating to the world.
Image credit: Adam Lee, Elegy, 2025, watercolour on paper, 106.5 x 78.0 cm (sheet). Courtesy of the artist & STATION.
Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin
Booth H12
Michael Reid returns with an ambitious installation spanning painting, photography, sculpture, and installation, featuring Narelle Autio, Julz Beresford, Betty Chimney, Gerwyn Davies, Tamara Dean, Troy Emery, Michelle Gearin, Petrina Hicks, John Honeywill, Linde Ivimey, Carly Le Cerf, Mai Nguyễn-Long, Trent Parke, Sid Pattni, Scott Perkins, Dr Christian Thompson AO, Gaypalani Wanambi, and Regina Pilawuk Wilson. This expansive presentation offers an unparalleled opportunity to encounter a broad spectrum of Australian contemporary practice, from emerging to established artists.
Image credit: Work by Petrina Hicks. Courtesy of the artist and Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin
PARKER Contemporary
Booth B14
PARKER Contemporary foregrounds analogue, process-led works, presenting printmaking and papermaking as conceptually rigorous practices. A vast collection of artists explores identity, memory, and environmental concerns through technically and materially demanding works. Each piece foregrounds labour, texture, and process, demonstrating the enduring relevance of analogue methods in a hyper-digital era.
Image credit: Alethea Richter, Divided Attention II, Hand printed multilayer silk screen on 100% Cotton Rag Paper, 56cm x 76cm. Image courtesy the artist and PARKER Contemporary.
SANDERSON
Booth I07
Returning after a five-year absence and under the new ownership of Lydia Cowpertwait, SANDERSON presents a tightly curated group of artists combining conceptual rigour with technical mastery. Kate van der Drift explores the ecological complexities of waterways in New Zealand, Ray Haydon investigates sculptural form and movement, emerging painter Loren Marks experiments with figurative abstraction, and Kāryn Taylor mesmerises with self-illuminating light boxes that interrogate perception and the unknown.
Image credit: Kate van der Drift, Waxing Gibbous to Waning Cresent, June I, 2022, Pigment Print from 4x5 Negative, 1400 x 1811 mm. Courtesy of the artist & Sanderson Contemporary.
PIERMARQ*
Booth J13
PIERMARQ* brings an international edge with a dynamic pairing of Xavier Baxter and Nacho Eterno. Baxter, a New York–based British painter, approaches his canvases with punk-like experimentation, layering figures, gestures, and raw colour into works that vibrate with energy and emotion. Alongside him, Spanish artist Nacho Eterno introduces paintings and ceramics infused with folk motifs, primitive forms, and a gritty, timeworn tactility. Together, the presentation highlights PIERMARQ*’s commitment to showcasing artists who push material and conceptual boundaries, bridging classical influences with the immediacy of lived experience.
Image credit: Xavier Baxter, Hold Me, 2024, oil on canvas, 241.3 x 208.3 cm. Courtesy of the artist and PIERMARQ*.
Saint Cloche
Booth J11
Saint Cloche exhibits a trio of artists —Christopher Jewitt, Luca Lettieri, and Elliott Routledge, whose works span painting, sculpture, installation, and public art. Director Kitty Clark emphasises the sensorial impact of the exhibition: “One cannot help but be drawn to the tactile, glistening, warm, furry, rippled surfaces, to the way materials bend, stretch, and hold against gravity or tension.” Their work celebrates materiality and texture while reflecting the subtleties of human experience, creating immersive and contemplative encounters.
Image credit: Detail shot of Luca Lettieri sculpture. Photo: Katie Kaars.
OLSEN GALLERY
Booth I14
OLSEN Gallery brings an impressive program to Sydney Contemporary 2025, headlined by a solo exhibition of new paintings by Louise Olsen. Exploring rhythm, nature, and abstraction with poetic clarity, Olsen’s works reveal her signature interplay of colour and form. Alongside this, the gallery launches 63 Jersey Art Sales in collaboration with Brett Ballard, presenting museum-quality works by artists including Brett Whiteley, Keith Haring, John Olsen, and Nicholas Harding. In Photo Sydney, George Byrne unveils a striking new chapter in his SYNTHESIA series, an analogue-meets-digital exploration of landscapes and constructed environments. Together, these presentations reflect OLSEN’s vision of connecting contemporary innovation with enduring legacies.
Image credit: Louise Olsen in studio. Courtesy the artist and OLSEN Gallery.
Sydney Contemporary 2025
Carriageworks, 245 Wilson St, Eveleigh NSW
VIP Preview: 10 Sep, 2–8pm | General Admission: 11–14 Sep
