Art - FIFTY+SA

David Roche Gallery celebrates 10 years with free exhibition

Staff Writer — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 04:11:29 +0000

David Roche Gallery is marking a decade of opening Fermoy House and sharing one of Australia’s most remarkable private collections with audiences nationally and internationally, with the launch of a special celebratory exhibition. Making Old New: DRG 10th Anniversary, SA Craft & Design reimagine the Collection runs from 23 May until 1 August 2026, bringing together David Roche Gallery’s 18th to early 20th-century European and British works alongside new works of art by 20 South Australian artists. The free exhibition is a collaborative venture with JamFactory, Australia’s premier craft and design training facility, featuring both established figures and more recent

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Meet Troy-Anthony Baylis, SALA Feature Artist 2026

Staff Writer — Thu, 21 May 2026 03:38:27 +0000

Troy-Anthony Baylis has been making art for more than three decades, work that sits at the intersection of identity, culture and lived experience. As this year’s SALA Feature Artist, the queer-Aboriginal artist brings a practice shaped by complexity, humour and a hard-won sense of self. We caught up with him ahead of the festival. Can you tell us a bit about your practice and what inspires you? I’ve been making art since 1993, mostly around socially constructed opposites and my actual reality of living as a queer-Aboriginal person of mixed appearances and geographies. As I’ve got older, I’m not only

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SA artist wins Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize

Staff Writer — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 21:57:00 +0000

An immensely topical and hauntingly beautiful porcelain artwork by Adelaide artist Deb McKay has been named winner of the South Australian Museum’s 2026 Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize. The piece, titled The Ghosts of our Coastal Water, emphasises the devastation South Australia’s ongoing algal bloom has had on the coastal marine ecosystem. Reflecting on the disturbing aftermath of environmental collapse, Deb says the work “had to be green, and it had to represent the ghost-like creatures that had died.” Kat Parker from Shepparton in Victoria won the Emerging Artists’ Prize for her piece Discarded (Christmas Island Pipistrelle), a hanging life-size

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Leading contemporary artist Abdul-Rahman Abdullah to headline Guildhouse masterclass and artist talk in Adelaide

Staff Writer — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 04:18:31 +0000

Guildhouse is bringing one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists to Adelaide, offering a rare opportunity for the local creative community to learn directly from acclaimed sculptor Abdul-Rahman Abdullah. Taking place on Saturday 9 May 2026, the program features a full-day professional masterclass followed by a special evening artist talk, giving South Australian artists, designers and makers the chance to gain practical insights into building and sustaining a creative career. The masterclass will see Abdullah share firsthand knowledge of his career trajectory, unpacking the realities of working in the arts while offering practical strategies to help creatives strengthen and sustain their

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The Mill steps up: Adelaide’s largest creative studio precinct expands again

Staff Writer — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 01:34:27 +0000

On a quiet weekday morning, on a quiet weekday morning, The Mill is anything but still. A textile artist hums as she threads colour into cloth. The rhythmic tap of a painter’s brush echoes down the hallway. From a studio upstairs comes the faint rehearsal of a dancer marking out steps, while a jewellery maker bends metal into something new. This is The Mill’s heartbeat, creative energy in constant motion, and now, there’s even more space for it to grow. In June 2025, the multidisciplinary arts organisation expanded into a vast warehouse loft tucked just behind its Angas Street home.

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Sue Ninham | Art in motion

Liv Williams — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 02:25:00 +0000

Interview by Liv Williams | Photos by Eloise Fuss For over two decades, Adelaide-based artist Sue Ninham has been exploring the edges of creativity through abstraction, intuition, and experimental play. A designer, maker, teacher, and multi-disciplinary artist, Sue’s work emerges from memory, imagination, and lived experience, developing a unique visual language that reflects transformation, introspection, and healing. Sue’s practice is grounded in what she calls “abandonment and experimentation,” a philosophy that embraces uncertainty and creative risk. “Often I turn up without a defined intention but more a feeling for what might happen creatively,” she explains. Whether working in watercolour, oil,

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Emma Hack to create living leafy seadragon artwork on Port Willunga Beach

Staff Writer — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 03:16:26 +0000

Internationally acclaimed Adelaide artist Emma Hack will bring together 888 South Australians this April to create a striking large-scale living artwork on Port Willunga Beach, forming the shape of the state’s marine emblem, the leafy seadragon. Taking place on Sunday 12 April, participants will be arranged across the sand using coloured clothing and body paint, creating a vivid image designed to be captured from above through aerial photography and film. Described as a once-in-a-generation community artwork, the installation forms part of Hack’s new Ocean Movement series, a body of work dedicated to exploring the connection between people, art and the

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SALA Festival 2026 opens registrations for South Australia’s biggest visual arts event

Staff Writer — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 13:46:11 +0000

Registrations are now open for the 2026 South Australian Living Artists Festival, inviting artists and venues across the state to take part in one of South Australia’s most celebrated cultural events. Running from 1 to 31 August, SALA Festival transforms the state into a dynamic, open-access gallery, with exhibitions appearing in traditional spaces as well as cafés, wineries, retail stores and public venues. It’s a unique opportunity to experience visual art in unexpected places while supporting local creatives. Recognised as the largest open-access visual arts festival in the Southern Hemisphere, SALA welcomes artists at every stage of their career, from

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Risk-taking and seeing the world anew at 50

Staff Writer — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 05:37:26 +0000

Alex Frayne on film, Manifest Destiny and creative reinvention Interview by Olivia Williams Turning fifty has a way of sharpening perspective, especially when you’re looking through a lens. For acclaimed South Australian photographer Alex Frayne, the milestone coincides with Manifest Destiny, a bold new exhibition premiering at ILA | Immersive Light and Art as part of the 2026 Adelaide Festival. Blending analogue film photography with 3D digital environments and original composition, Manifest Destiny unfolds across three journeys through the United States. The project interrogates the mythology of modern America, its contradictions, beauty and fractures, while quietly holding up a mirror

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Fantastic Forms exhibition at David Roche Gallery South Australia exclusive

Staff Writer — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 01:19:00 +0000

The vibrant, abundant and joyful exhibition Fantastic Forms, celebrating the creativity of the human imagination through drawing, ceramics, sculpture and animation, will be on show at David Roche Gallery from February 17 to May 9, 2026. Presented as a South Australian exclusive, the exhibition offers visitors a rare opportunity to experience significant works from the Bundanon Collection alongside contemporary Australian artists. Featuring more than 200 drawings and ceramics, Fantastic Forms captures the energy, movement and colour in the expansive creative practice of Merric Boyd (1888–1959) in dialogue with three very different contemporary artists – Rubyrose Bancroft, Stephen Benwell and Nabilah

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