Five New Art Exhibitions to See Before the Year is Out

Curated by Anna Louise Richardson, this show at Galerie Pompom brings together a group of emerging artists from Western Sydney: Caspar Fairhall, David George Ledger and Ian Williams. Each artist will be examining the malleable space between fiction and reality. Moving between landscapes, the built environment and digital imagery, this exhibition will re-evaluate contemporary painting practice and what the ‘plastic arts’ might mean in our contemporary and increasingly screen-based age.

While at the gallery, you can also catch 24 Hour Franco from collective Kubrick or Korine (Justin Harvey and Alex Munt), a TV channel inspired by the one and only James Franco, which also pays homage to both the actor and icon, and the televisual dreams of Nam June Paik.

In this exhibition, outer space is not just the vastness beyond Earth’s atmospheric layers – that is, the black blanket where planets live — it also refers to the spaces in-between human bodies, the agency of our physical existence, and the ways we inhabit our environments.

Casula Powerhouse will be presenting work from a range of contemporary artists, including Anotinette J. Citizen, Haines & Hinterding, Christina Lissman, Peter Hennessey, Sylvia Schwenk, Alasdair Macintyre, Adam Norton, Liam O’Brien, Mira Oosterweghel, and Vernon Treweeke in the two-month exhibition, aptly named Outer Space.

Firstdraft has one last offering of emerging art to round off 2015. This month will feature four exhibitions, each exploring four very different facets of contemporary life.

From the curatorial collective Acute Art Investments International (AAII), Portable Domains will look at how businesses and opportunities takes shape on and offline: the antiquated bricks and mortar model as opposed to the booming era of social media platforms. The collective will dip into the complex web of self-promotion, self-branding and self-curating, working to uncover ways in which artists can work cross-culturally.

To quench your culture thirst, you can also catch Make or Break from Connie Anthes and Rebecca Gallo, The Infra from Peter Blamey and like, tabular knit gradient pleats cymophanous cabochon, like from Eddie Hopely.

Deborah Kelly is one of our home-grown gems. Her practice is sharp and subversive, often involving a clever use of imagery and incisive political commentary. This exhibition at the Penrith Regional Gallery in partnership with The Lewers Bequest will showcase work from the last 15 years of Kelly’s practice.

Kelly has won a swag of awards across Australia and the world. She creates captivating portraits, collages and animations while taking on a whole range of themes, such as global capital, public policy, religious authority, power and privilege.

A new exhibition from acclaimed British artist and Turner Prize winner Grayson Perry will open this month – his first major survey in the Southern Hemisphere.

A cross-dressing icon and former YBA, the artist is best known for crafting beautiful ceramic pots and his feminine alter-ego, Claire. Perry’s foray into pottery might be thought of as injecting an ancient medium with “a perversion to match the curtains”, to use his own words. His designs channel a broad range of themes, from trashy twentieth century culture to autobiographical reflections.

The exhibition will feature a diverse selection of Perry’s work, bringing together sculptures, prints, and drawings. It will also include his large-scale and highly detailed tapestries produced in conjunction with the 2012 TV series In the Best Possible Taste, which was a compelling insight into how taste reflects class in contemporary Britain.

Fascinated with identities, Perry creates kitschy and colourful commentaries on power, fame, religion, and sex. His lurid patterns and outright irrelevance ought to make for a pretty exciting summer in Sydney.