MRAG

Learning from Country is an exhibition showcasing the writing, art and design of six multi-award-winning books produced by artist/designer Ken Searle and author Nadia Wheatly and exemplifying the principle of ‘Learning from Country’ that the artist and author experienced while working as consultants at the school in the Aboriginal community of Papunya - Northern Territory.

The universe our world moves in is unfathomably vast, limitless and unknowable. But we each live in our own universe, our own small world, an intimate universe of personal experience. In this exhibition the artists will be contemplating the universe in all its interpretations, in the form of miniature art - paintings, drawings, sculpture and more - and through their artwork inviting the viewers to understand their idea of what it means to exist in an Intimate Universe.

The Current histories of LGBTQI people in Australia focus on Melbourne and Sydney. This project will be the first to focus on a regional LGBTQI community and how it connected with the wider Hunter Newcastle region to produce the largest percentage vote (75%) for marriage equality in the 2017 postal ballot outside the capital cities. The LGBTQI community is directly affected by shifts in thinking and the law in ways that have not yet been fully explored. Given the vulnerability…

If this exhibition has a theme, it’s the idea of falling in love again, whether this is with someone, something, an animal, your body, an activity you love doing or just your own life. The Re-Enchantment exhibition spans two floors of MRAG’s Art Factory exhibition space. Downstairs will be a giant cardboard box city, which people can move around to build into the city of their dreams. Upstairs is a rather exotic reading room, complete with a painted piano, bookcase…

Safe Space Contemporary Sculpture brings together three-dimensional art works by twelve Australian artists that explore psychological aspects of physical space. It features a range of figurative elements and narrative themes with social, and sometimes political, resonances. Many of the works in this exhibition take as their point of departure: the human body, its dimensions, the spaces it occupies, the narratives that contain it and the theatre or spectacle that unfolds around it. Touring exhibition from MGSQLD More information here. Education…

The Elliott Eyes Collection of contemporary art is usually housed in a private Victorian terrace house in Erskineville, Sydney NSW. The ever-growing art collection, currently numbered at about 300 works (sculpture, painting and ceramics) focuses mainly on Australian and New Zealand art, but also includes work by German, Belgium, American, South African and English artists. Motivated by the realisation that once works become part of a private collection they can easily be ‘lost’ to public view, the collectors Gordon Elliott…

This exhibition will explore the untold drama and fanfare that unfolds on ‘race day’. In the form of painting, Kunko is witness to the interactions behind the scenes of jockeys through to horse owners and the pageant atmosphere of the fashions on the field events. From manicured gardens and grassy green turf like Bathurst and Dubbo to dirt bush tracks in the outback like Collarenebri and Enngonia, Kunko sees people from all backgrounds who come together pitching their luck on…

Judy Cassab AO CBE (1920-2015) was one of Australia’s most prolific, most popular and best-known portraitists. Cassab emigrated to Australia in 1951, having studied art in Prague and her native Hungary. Cassab had 40 paintings hung in the Archibald Art prize at AGNSW across her lifetime and won the prestigious prize twice. Recently MRAG acquired through donation over 100 works on paper – this exhibition will celebrate that legacy.

‘Hide and Seek’ is an interactive exhibition designed to encourage gallery visitors of all kinds to seek images which have the potential to unlock hidden personal stories. The base of 500 small hand drawn and varnished images in this body of work, when exhibited on mass, act as potent visual memory triggers that viewers can unlock, privately or openly, using words and images.

This survey exhibition reveals the expanse of Mountford’s practice from video, sculpture and drawing. Featured in the exhibition is his recent work 100 years (2016), an animated chronology of 100 appropriated artworks charting the evolution of abstract art since the ‘zero point’ of Malevich’s Black Square in 1915, as well as a new suite of drawings exploring the viral phenomenon of ‘unboxing’. Mountford’s experiments with sculptural elements add yet another layer, with ramps and apparatus structuring the viewer’s experience and…

These scholarships support young achievers in the visual arts (30 years or under) and who live or work in the Lower Hunter (including Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Maitland, Port Stephens, Cessnock, Muswellbrook and Singleton) to undertake a program of professional development in an international context.   There are 2 scholarships to be awarded on the basic of artistic merit and potential -  a winner's scholarship of $5,000 and a runner up scholarship of $3,000. Eligible emerging artists are invited to submit an…

A biennial fundraising art sale wherein paintings, prints and sculptures are up for sale to help raise funds for the MRAG Members Program, supporting activities like Free Art Sunday. The MRAG Members Program is a cornerstone of the gallery’s success. This event is an important way for the community to support the work of the members group, local artists and the gallery.

My Maitland is an exhibition of paintings and drawings by Maitland based artist, Holly McNamee, which reflects on the remains of the once thriving pastoral industry of Maitland and parts of the Hunter Valley. Dairies, stock yards, and hay sheds which now make place for the growing suburbs of Maitland.

Based in the Northern Territory but having spent time in the Hunter, Stockley will be returning to revisit and record the small scenes of the Hunter. Utilising both drawing and painting and with a simplified pallet – Stockley will present in 30 small paintings; the roads, the roof tops and power lines which are often ignored but nevertheless a part of our everyday

Ken Done is well known for his vibrant paintings that depict the iconic Australian experience. The magnificent selection of artworks in Paintings You Probably Haven’t Seen: Selected Works 2000 – 2017 celebrates the splendour of Australia’s natural beauty. The artist finds wonder in the everyday through glorious colour, spontaneous mark making and brilliant visual expression. This exhibition, as the title suggests, is a joyful collection of Ken’s most important pieces from his private collection, side by side with his latest…

Fieldwork is an exhibition that will survey plein air painting (painting outdoors)west of Sydney between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The region, which encompasses the Western Suburbs, Blue Mountains, and the Hawkesbury, has been a popular artists destination since European settlement and its portrayal in landscape art of this period has made an important contribution to Australian art. Surprisingly, this history and significance is often overlooked in displays or accounts of Australian art which are inclined toward other…