2024

Art Gallery NSW – Infinite

Featuring the work of ten artists from around Australia, the 2024 Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial is titled Infinite and focuses on abstraction. The works selected for this exhibition vary from hand-drawn graphite, coloured pencil and ink on paper, to collaborative wall and floor drawings, works made using the power of the sun, and works that extend beyond two dimensions. They all share an abstract aesthetic and also explore technology, the forces of nature and the rhythms of the body.

The exhibiting artists are: Matthew Allen (NSW), Helen Eager (NSW), Emma Fielden (NSW), the late Ngarralja Tommy May (WA), Ceara Metlikovec (NSW), Kerrie Poliness (VIC), Cameron Robbins (VIC), Sandra Selig (QLD), Kate Vassallo (ACT) and Savanhdary Vongpoothorn (ACT).

2020

Art Gallery NSW – Real Worlds

Real worlds: Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial 2020 presents the work of eight contemporary Australian artists who create extraordinary new worlds in drawings of great complexity and invention.

With drawing as the principal medium, the exhibited works evoke distinctive ways of seeing and making sense of the world. For some, it recreates a physical environment, grounded in a deep connection to place or country. For others, it is an invention that springs forth from history, memory and the imagination.

The exhibiting artists are Martin Bell (Victoria), Matt Coyle (Tasmania), Nathan Hawkes (NSW), Danie Mellor (NSW), Peter Mungkuri (South Australia), Becc Ország (Victoria), Jack Stahel (NSW) and Helen Wright (Tasmania).

2018

Art Gallery NSW – Playback

In response to images found in art history, archives, newspapers, cinema and online, the artists in this exhibition use drawing to reanimate history, in a process that involves imagination, fabrication and the repurposing of prior sources.

Vernon Ah Kee creates skeletal and ghostly faces in remembrance of the 2004 Palm Island riots; Sharon Goodwin’s 3-D drawings re-vision the slippery surfaces of fact and fiction in historical narrative; and Laura Hindmarsh’s double exposures trace images of women in cinematic classics as found on the internet.

Regional Tours:
– Orange Regional Gallery. 12 October 2019 – 8 December 2019. More…
– Blue Mountains Cultural Centre. 16 March 2019 – 5 May 2019. More…

2016

Art Gallery NSW – Close to Home

The Art Gallery of New South Wales is delighted to announce Close to home, the second Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial, from 30 July until 11 December 2016. Continuing the legacy of the Dobell Prize for Drawing, this curated exhibition presents the work of six Australian artists whose practice is connected by narrative, memory and experience.

2014

Art Gallery NSW – Drawing Out

Showcasing the vitality and breadth of drawing in Australia. Drawing is fundamental to the practice of each of the ten contemporary artists in this exhibition. Their works range from watercolour to film, performance and sculpture, highlighting how the art of drawing can often defy classification.

The exhibition reveals how the process of drawing itself allows these artists to engage with the landscape – urban, rural, natural or constructed – and the importance of a tangible subject to their work.
Drawing out is the first in a series of curated exhibitions on contemporary Australian drawing to be held every two years – the Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial – following the acclaimed Dobell Prize for Drawing (1993–2012). It features Tom Carment, Joe Furlonger, Ross Laurie, Ivy Pareroultja, Ana Pollak, Peter Sharp, Mary Tonkin, John R Walker, Gosia Wlodarczak and John Wolseley. Their wide-ranging works move from intimate sketchbook drawings to large-scale panoramas