Sydney is not a city I spend much time in. Between the ever increasing cost of flights, and that a singular sandwich was going to run me $29, weekend sojourns are not often in the cards. The only thing that could get me on a Westjet flight at 645am is love – platonic, lifelong, very true love. And the promise of an extra day to see as much art as possible. I did go to the AGNSW (and loved the Young Archie and And Still I Rise) and of course White Rabbit, but we aren’t going (that) highbrow today. 

Olivia Laing is perhaps the author I recommend to those with a passing interest in art criticism, or just good writing. They capture the essence of things without bogging you down, expanding your understanding without talking down to you. It can be read straight through, or copiously noted and annotated, a starting point to go further. It’s the kind of writing that makes you a better reader, and a better writer in turn for that. Laing’s prose has turns of phrase I want to sink my teeth into: “the glowing clamshells of their laptops”,  “the rest are simply openings, apertures”, “palliative to loneliness.” My list could be endless, my notes surely feel that way. 

KINGS Artist-Run is a gallery we’ve sorely neglected here on Lowbrow for the year we’ve been publishing. The gallery, now solidly a West Melbourne staple, started 23 years ago in the CBD and has a rich history for being the proving ground for many artists who have gone on to be acquired by institutional collections, or come full circle as the lecturers now teaching the current group of exhibitors at art school. Currently on at KINGS are three shows; Pith and Seed curated by Gabriella Bartolo-Kanellopoulos, Surplus Pleasure: Load from last checked point.dat by Barcode People, and Do you remember? by Panisa Ongwat.

Beckoning you in is Pao Pao (the goldfish from Kelly Yu’s Endling) set against a white wall, blocking the exhibition from sight. Being on a plinth, against a stark wall, in a sparse tank, Pao Pao is loneliness in its most raw form. Once recovered from my aquatic animal-related existential crisis, I dutifully read the opening didactic (with a prerequisite Olivia Laing quote on loneliness supplementing the introduction) and finally faced the cavernous hall. ACCA feels almost supernaturally massive inside; a size and scale well suited to an exhibition capitalizing on loneliness, and the inherent connection we all have through those moments.

It feels very full circle to be writing about fortyfive downstairs’ 2026 Emerging Artist Award. Even though Charlotte was the one who covered the show last year, there’s a certain joy in Lowbrow being back at the same exhibition a year later. We’re growing and we’re evolving but we’re still focused where we want to be; on the emerging artists and their work. Equally, it’s gratifying to see some of the artists that I’ve written about before being included in this show: Ruinscape by Grace Mitchell which I wrote about in Held, Altered at No Vacancy, and also face of an orchid by Tara Howe which I wrote about in silently, childhood’s crystalline paths sank in the garden at Oddany gallery. That was the third ever post on Lowbrow, and now I’m seeing Howe’s work again over a year later, and loving even more on second viewing the delicate orchid made softly solid.

Counihan Gallery, on Sydney Road in the heart of Brunswick, is a council gallery for the people. Currently on view are four shows, each entirely their own: Colour My World by Joshua Hede, Not a fine artist, just a "fine" artist by Judy Kuo, Mulana by ENOKi, and Things I Carried Quietly by Nani Puspasari. The exhibitions did not feel connected, but they did not need to be. Counihan knows their space well enough that each holds its own, no encroaching or overshadowing, despite the airiness of the gallery.

Much in the way there is no truly impartial writer, there is no perfect biography. Black, White and Colour is no exception. A biography of Mervyn Bishop, hailed as Australia’s first Indigenous professional photographer, I found this to read like a story half finished – too short, dancing over the stickier parts of Bishop’s personal life and relationships, not allowing facts and realities to breathe. It’s an issue that rises again and again with biographies written while the subject is still living, and when they have a heavy hand in the shaping of the narrative.

One of three annual fundraising shows, Queer Heirlooms at Unassigned Gallery is also their third annual collaborative exhibition with Queer Love Collective. This year, featuring 100 artists on the dot, the exhibition explores memory and heritage, looking at what meaning we make and how we pass it on. The exhibition spans about every art form you can imagine – including the written word and medieval weapons made out of fabric – contains multitudes in how expansively “heirloom” was interpreted. The more I explored the exhibition, both on opening night and on a more relaxed weekday return, the grouping of works by loose theme seemed to pop out. There were explorations of kink, of queer labelling, sexual exploration, online worlds, fandom, and queer history among many others. In an open call exhibition, the breadth of work and skill is bound to vary, but three categories - photography, fibre arts, and the proliferation of renaissance adjacent imagery - stood out above the crowd.

If you read my writing on Held, Altered at No Vacancy a couple weeks ago, you’ll know I had tried to go to Bus Projects, but the world was truly against me getting there. Maybe I should have taken that as a sign, but alas I tried again this week, and actually managed to make it in to see us as stars, as horses. Featuring work by Sophie Coe, the show is a collaboration with Kamilaroi curator Tabitha Glanville.

Found objects, glass in fully saturated colours, and steel frames unite Dinette by Kostas Pavlidis, currently on show at Strawberry Gallery in Brunswick. Though I make a point to go in and see what the gallery has in store for me each time they pop up with something new, this is the first show I have seen from Pavlidis since his inclusion at Strawberry’s Spring1883 showing in 2025. Strawberry feels uniquely apt for this work. Both the show and the gallery seem to be held together by sheer force (the front wall of Strawberry consistently feels like a feat of engineering; Pavlidis’ works held together by welding). 

So here I am breaking the No Vacancy ban to write about Held, Altered featuring Grace Mitchell, Indya Pearce and Keely Vermalis. And I’m so glad that I’ve ended up here writing about this show, because I’m so pleasantly surprised how well these three artists work together in this space. At first glance, the through line between the work seems precarious. But spending time with the work in the space, I’m convinced. These works speak to each other through memory and time, and it almost feels like I’m walking into a private conversation being held between the artists.

I haven’t had many reasons to venture out west from my inner north bubble in the years I’ve been living in Melbourne, and I’m well aware of how much of a shame that is – especially as this was my very first time visiting the institution that is Trocadero Projects. There are currently three separate shows filling the gallery space which I had the joy of exploring before buying heading round the corner to pick up the weirdest assortment of groceries from Cheaper Buy Miles; Tent Theory by Hunter Smith, We live by inference from the Saluhan Collective and Discovering human-nature by Lan Anh Truong. 

Rereading Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? is an annual experience for me, often precipitated by a friend saying they haven’t yet pulled it up. A foundational text, if not the foundational text of looking at feminism(s) in art history, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists is an essay that is never far from my mind. From first reading it at 19 in ARTH101 in undergrad, I’ve variously argued for, against, outside of, and in need of redressing, Nochlin’s most famous work. As someone who comes to art through an art historical lens, rather than a hands on practice, I am always surprised with the gap between the theory and the history taught in art schools. I’m not saying this as a blanket statement – obviously everyone is a unique individual – but it is a piece of text that is so ubiquitous when studying art history, I cannot imagine writing about, critiquing, or even considering much of much of the art and exhibitions I see without a thorough knowledge of it in my back pocket.

Intended or not, I couldn’t keep the Catholic Church out of my mind at every Design Week event I’ve attended. Between the stained glass ceiling of the NGV’s Great Hall evoking cathedrals, and the inherent, site based religiosity of both Alpha60’s Chapter House playing host to Jon Goulder and the Abbotsford Convent, Christianity was omnipresent in a way that contemporary art and design eschews.

Jesse Boylan, Isabella Capezio, Jody Haines, Pia Johnson, Katrin Koenning, Christine McFetridge, Rebecca Najdowski, and Clare Rae are part of Correspondences, currently on view at Hillvale Gallery. The artists and their works blend - it was a breath of fresh air to have the works genuinely talk to each other, rather than yell from their own corners of a room.

Galleria Crocodillo has no art on their walls for the month of May. Instead they’ve staged a scavenger hunt across the streets of the affectionately known ‘Presevoir’ (Preston / Reservoir for those not in the know). The starting point is a $2 map purchased from a vending machine that blocks the door of the gallery space. This map gives you ten destinations across Plenty Rd in Reservoir and High St in Preston to explore. Each destination is matched with a clue. Not only is this a scavenger hunt, but it’s equally a puzzle; the clues are also riddles that have you searching high and low, and the prize in this case is the art from these local artists.

It is with full confidence that I can say not a single art gallery on Gertrude Street is lowbrow. I mean, it’s Fitzroy: of course they aren't. This week though, I went back to my art history roots, and took a look at A Seat at the Table from Art & Collectors. Spanning 101 years (the oldest work a floral still life from 1925, the most recent a self portrait dating from this year) the exhibition is a snapshot of female Australian artists. At first glance, the show is filled with the prerequisite floral still lives, self-portraits, and snippets of home life that come with the territory of a broad subject matter like simply “female artists.” It's when you look through the works, take them in one by one that you see that this is a show of echoes – artists are echoing each other and themselves, calling out through the decades to continue a conversation. 

You might be wondering, if we’re reading John Berger, why aren’t we reading Ways of Seeing? Quite frankly, great question and I’m glad you asked. Between the TV series (which I am not opposed to including in Bottom Shelf at some point) and how ubiquitous the text is in studying art and art history at any level, I don’t feel that I had much to add to the discussion. Permanent Red, on the other hand, was Berger’s first book, published in 1960. Reading his early criticism, his thoughts and arguments with himself, there’s a lot to identify with and unpack. Berger is an expansive author, winning prizes for his criticism and even the Booker Prize for his fiction, he’s also an author that feels unwieldy, so the beginning is where I will enter into the bibliographical fray.

After visiting Inter-narratives of hope: building catastrophe resilience at MADA and before reading the accompanying exhibition I called a friend and had a whinge about this show. I complained that I didn’t see a strong connection between the works on display. I grumbled that the curatorial vision isn’t strong enough if it’s unclear from viewing the show alone, and you should’ve have to read an essay to derive meaning from an exhibition. I whinged that the title of the show was an over intellectualisation from PhD candidates (which I still partly stand behind) and inaccessible for the public as a curatorial concept. I’d like to make a correction to what I said to my friend; this is a great show, and made stronger by its accompanying text. I feel blind for not reading it while in the space and for only being able to view the work with this lens in hindsight.

Forever Bedroom, Nina Seeburg’s ode to our quietest, most personal spaces is an intimate portrayal of the refuge found in our childhood bedrooms, the first rooms of our own. Greeting you up the stairs that lead to Changing Room Gallery is a vanity, littered with personal effects (clown, axe, and giant dildo included) a taster for the intimacy and clarity of theming that defines Forever Bedroom.