Bett Gallery

Kate McKenzie Lewis Ember continues until 23 May 2026 @latekewis Artwork 1-3: Dreaming together 2026, Serendipity tonight 2026 & Sky over 2026. All oil on linen, 18 x 24 cm #katemckenzielewis #bettgallery #painting #australianartist

Closing soon: Julie Gough Force Field @julietasmania Contemporary Art Tasmania @contemporaryarttasmania Curated by Tash Bradley-Cross Force Field continues until 16 May. “An invitation to respond to Hobart the city is a daunting prospect. Although I have lived here for more than 30 years, I inhabit this place through an 1800s lens. Those People, relationships, landmarks and stories swirl around me, they overwhelm my present. Today’s citizens are the spectres.” Julie Gough, ‘Scrying the Pool’, Force Field exhibition catalogue “In Force Field, Julie Gough shows us Hobart as a precarious city, perched awkwardly on the precipice between past and future. Three sites are weighed down equally by history and potential. Two of these are places few Tasmanians would be unaware of, places that have—for some reason or another—regularly made national and even international headlines. The grey, industrial expanse of Macquarie Point. The tense, empty plinth in Franklin Square. The third is perhaps more obscure, inaccessible and unrecognisable but to the historically-minded: a grate, covering the spring that once drew forth behind George Augustus Robinson’s house. Once known as ‘the Pool of Aborigines’, it became an object of nostalgic, folkloric fascination for late-Victorian society, the place “in which the blackfellows took their daily wash” and the tense conflict of the city’s early years—at that time increasingly retold in grand, heroic terms—found its culmination in Robinson’s great act of betrayal.” Hugh Magnus, a writer based between Naarm and Nipaluna, writes for the Force Field exhibition catalogue. He is interested in desire, repair, and the difficulties of history. @hugh.lm The catalogue available in hardcopy at CAT or online. Images: @jessehunniford #juliegough #forcefield #contemporaryarttasmania

Congrats to Joan Ross who has been selected as a finalist in the 2026 Sir John Sulman Prize. Art Gallery of New South Wales 9 May – 16 August 2026 @wecallthisatree “In this picture, the background is barren, ravaged from greed. The woman, a colonial, holds a dying butterfly, which she has tried to save in an act that is full of regret but too late for redemption. This is where we are sitting now in history: many of us worried about the environment, watching species become extinct before our eyes, not sure what we can do. The reverberation of colonisation in our country is still palpable as greed envelops our world. Daily, we become more self-centred, our necks bent towards our phones. Our peripheral vision is disappearing and with it the trees, the insects and animals.” Joan Ross, 2026 Image: Joan Ross, I tried to save you 2026, synthetic polymer paint on linen, 101.8 x 81.4 cm Photo © Art Gallery of New South Wales #joanross #archibaldprize

Congratulations to Amanda Davies who has been selected as a finalist in the 2026 Archibald Prize. Art Gallery of New South Wales 9 May – 16 August 2026 Marta Dusseldorp @martadusseldorp is an esteemed actor. She is also a producer, co-founding Archipelago Productions in Nipaluna/Hobart with her husband Ben Winspear. ‘I chose to paint Marta primarily because I admire her commitment to the arts in Tasmania,’ says Amanda Davies, who is based in Premaydena, Lutruwita/Tasmania. ‘She is a determined risk-taker, and I perceive a sense of vulnerability about her. We have worked together on various theatrical projects, where she has pushed for the inclusion of paintings, which I love. ‘In this portrait, Marta stands in front of my studio wall, gazing at the viewer – her audience. Op shop brogues, tied with white string, hang over her head like big black ears. Initially it’s silly; this is the realm of the absurd, of not knowing why and being creative. Comfortable with this, Marta is ready to burst into performance and reveal the story. ‘Linked to surrealism and feminism, shoes can be a code for pleasure, for movement, work, dress, protection and storytelling. Here, they subvert the standard female portrait. Marta the actor is paused, ready for the void to be filled and the story to begin.’ Amanda Davies, 2026 Image: Amanda Davies @shrunkjumper , Marta 2026, oil on linen, 40.5 x 40.5 cm. Photo © Art Gallery of New South Wales A huge congrats to both Amanda and Marta! #amandadavies #martadusseldorp #archibaldprize

Opening tonight: Kate McKenzie Lewis Ember Friday 1 May, 5:30 - 7pm Exhibition continues to 23 May 2026 @latekewis The works draw on a combination of lived memory, observation, and research. I reference personal experiences of smoke-filled skies, road closures, foggy horizons and the warm, foreboding glow of sun and moon during firey summers, alongside draw ings made from bushfire-affected landscapes. These are interwoven with found imagery and material gathered from media coverage, environmental reports, and ongoing research, bringing together intimate and collective experiences of fire. Artwork 1-4: As above 2026, Smoke beckoning 2026, Night calls 2026 & Hugging me 2026. All oil on aluminium, framed, 24 x 34 cm #katemckenzielewis #bettgallery #painting #australianartist

Opening Friday: Hermannsburg Potters Thepa Kwatja-Rinya | Birds Of Water @hermannsburgpotters Exhibition: 1–23 May 2026 Opening night: Friday 1 May 2026, 5.30–7pm Guest artist: Judith Inkamala, Senior artist, Hermannsburg Potters, Ntaria The internationally renowned Hermannsburg Potters return for their annual exhibition with Bett Gallery. Now in its ninth year, this much-anticipated exhibition continues to be a highlight for collectors and admirers of Hermannsburg ceramics around the world. We invite you to join us for the opening and to meet Judith Inkamala, as we celebrate this ongoing collaboration. Hayley Coulthard Josie Fly Judith Inkamala Beth Inkamala Donna McNamara Michelle Pareroultja Andrea Rontji Rona Rubuntja Dawn Wheeler #hermannsburgpotters #bettgallery

Opening Friday: Kate McKenzie Lewis Ember 1 - 23 May 2026 Opening night Friday 1 May, 5:30 - 7pm @latekewis Following her debut in PLATFORM24, Bett Gallery is proud to present the inaugural solo exhibition of Melbourne-based artist Kate McKenzie Lewis. Kate’s practice is shaped by the Australian landscape, grounding her work in the intensity of place, atmosphere, and the shifting, heightened qualities of light. We invite you to join us at the opening to meet the artist and experience this evocative new body of work. After graduating with a Master of Contemporary Art from the VCA in 2022, Kate McKenzie Lewis has continued her engagement with the bush and coast through walking, camping, running, and painting, drawn to the Australian landscape and its entangled eucalypts, where her practice explores its contradictions of vast beauty and deep loss, and reflects a sense of love, loss, and foreignness to place. Through shifts in perspective, light, colour, and scale, McKenzie Lewis unsettles perception, moving between memory and imagination, her work transportive, where recognition of place is both evoked and disrupted. Artwork 1: Storm impending, 2026, oil on board, framed in Tasmanian oak, 64 x 75 cm Artwork 2: Paddock deep breathing, 2026, oil on board, framed in Tasmanian oak, 38 x 48 cm #katemckenzielewis #bettgallery #painting #australianartist

Opening Friday:  Hermannsburg Potters Thepa Kwatja-Rinya | Birds Of Water @hermannsburgpotters     Exhibition: 1–23 May 2026 Opening night: Friday 1 May 2026, 5.30–7pm Guest artist: Judith Inkamala, Senior artist, Hermannsburg Potters, Ntaria    The internationally renowned Hermannsburg Potters return for their annual exhibition with Bett Gallery.  Now in its ninth year, this much-anticipated exhibition continues to be a highlight for collectors and admirers of Hermannsburg ceramics around the world.  We invite you to join us for the opening and to meet Judith Inkamala, as we celebrate this ongoing collaboration.   Hayley Coulthard Josie Fly Judith Inkamala Beth Inkamala Donna McNamara Michelle Pareroultja Andrea Rontji Rona Rubuntja Dawn Wheeler   The Hermannsburg artists continue a 30-year legacy, sculpting and painting their visual histories and contemporary settings. Working with remarkable skill across hand-built ceramics and watercolour-style landscape painting, each artist creates distinct works grounded in Country, community and lived experience.   Working in terracotta using hand-built coil and pinch techniques, the artists create distinctive forms finished with ceramic underglaze. Drawing on a lineage associated with Albert Namatjira, the practice continues today through senior artists and a new generation working together at the art centre.  Working from Ntaria in the Northern Territory, the Hermannsburg Potters continue a long and distinctive tradition. Their work carries deep connections to Country, community and lived experience. Their pots are widely held in public and private collections nationally and internationally.   #hermannsburgpotters #bettgallery

On now: Brigita Ozolins Open the Door Collaboration with composer and musician Dean Stevenson The Ladies Cottage, Willow Court, New Norfolk On now until 3 May 2026 @brigita_ozolins_art @deanstevensonmusic @willowcourtnursesquarters OPEN THE DOOR is a site-specific art installation that responds to the long history of women who were psychiatric patients in the Ladies Cottage at New Norfolk’s Willow Court. It is a first-time collaboration with composer Dean Stevenson and transforms the two storey Cottage using over sixty suspended mirrors, a haunting soundtrack and chalk writing on the walls. Originally built in 1868, the Cottage provided accommodation in private rooms for women from privileged backgrounds who were diagnosed with conditions such as hysteria, melancholia, epilepsy, disobedience and impure thoughts. Treatment featured outdated and often cruel medical procedures such as ice-water baths, but the ladies were also occupied with sewing, needlepoint, cleaning, cooking and, surprisingly, animal therapy with llamas and rabbits. OPEN THE DOOR was inspired by the fact that inpatient admission to the Cottage required only two signatures, but release required eight. It aims to show that despite the challenges faced by the residents, many were not powerless and had an inner strength that enabled them to open the door to a life beyond Willow Court. With special thanks to The Siisters, Dane and Asker, Emma, Warren, Dave the Baker, Associated Plastics for fabrication and John Metcalfe for the use of song lyrics from his composition Solitude. ​ ​This project has been supported by the Tasmanian Government. #brigitaozolin #deanstevenson

Bett Gallery is thrilled to present Kate McKenzie Lewis’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, Ember. 1 - 23 May 2026 Opening night Friday 1 May, 5:30 - 7pm @latekewis Following her debut in PLATFORM24, Bett Gallery is proud to present the inaugural solo exhibition of Melbourne-based artist Kate McKenzie Lewis. Kate’s practice is shaped by the Australian landscape, grounding her work in the intensity of place, atmosphere, and the shifting, heightened qualities of light. We invite you to join us at the opening to meet the artist and experience this evocative new body of work. Fire is a crucial part of Australia’s ecological and climatic systems. This duality is reflected at the core of this exhibition: a belief in cycles of burning and renewal, and in the land’s capacity for regeneration. Through these paintings, I explore the complex connections between natural processes, human impact, and the ways we perceive, remember, and remain connected to place. Central to the work is an investigation of light, how it reveals, distorts, and reconfigures what we see. Moving through my landscape, my vision softens amid haze, fog and embers. Light fractures across the surface, creating fleeting moments of beauty within the ecological evolution. Artwork 1: In the light of day the burnt bush glows 2026, oil on canvas, 100 x 120 cm (stretcher size) Artwork 2: Tangled and choking 2026, oil on canvas, 100 x 120 cm (stretcher size) #katemckenzielewis #bettgallery #painting #australianartist

Platform26: Armie Sungvaribud @stickyricewithlarbisnice Since moving to the suburbs, I have been navigating the quiet shifts of settling into a new home. Re-discovering a new rhythm of living. With this transition came unfamiliar streets and unknown faces. At first, everything felt heightened and observant. Trees, flowers, houses, passing conversations-each detail carried a sense of discovery. Over time, repetition softened this awareness. The unfamiliar became mundane. The faces I passed each day - neighbours, dogs, commuters - blended into the background of my everyday life. I am interested in the quiet significance of these small encounters. These moments may appear insignificant, yet they construct the texture of daily existence. Through making, I attempt to solidify what would otherwise dissolve into habit. My works act as a record - By drawing attention to these fragments of daily life, I seek to preserve their quiet value and to acknowledge how deeply they shape our sense of place and belonging. Armie Sungvaribud, 2026 All artworks are raku clay, mid-fire glaze, platinum lustre & copper oxide Through the PLATFORM annual exhibition series, which includes the UTAS Bett Gallery Award, Bett Gallery maintains its sustained commitment to supporting emerging and early career artists. PLATFORM brings together a focused selection of artists whose work reflects the range, ambition and strength of contemporary practice. For more than 15 years, the exhibition has been a key part of the gallery’s program, offering meaningful exposure at a pivotal stage in an artist’s career. More than a showcase, PLATFORM provides a professional context that helps position artists within the broader contemporary landscape, while giving audiences insight into the direction of the next generation. #armiesungvaribud #bettgallery #platform26 #painting #australianartist

Platform26: Leigh Rigozzi @leighrigozzi Trees are a common subject matter in this body of work, as are human figures. Other things that appear are houses, rubbish, and dead things. Sometimes I have painted a study of a picture from the past. I have chosen my subjects based on their character or aura, and on what I feel like painting on a particular day. I’ve painted most of my pictures in squares because to me, a square is symmetrical and safe. If I paint within a square, it provides a consistent framework for my disparate ideas and styles. I can arrange all my ideas into a neat grid. Then it becomes a sequence, or a story that I can tell myself. If I change the order of the panels, the story changes too. Each of these paintings relates to a person, place, or reference that has meaning to me. Each painting features one figure or more. Sometimes the figure is a person. Sometimes it’s a tree. Sometimes it’s something else. I am trying to develop a visual grammar that helps me to process my feelings. Some of these works relate to optimism, and others to despair. Some of them relate to degrees between those two extremes. Things that I find hopeful include trees, birds, human relationships, art, and gardening. Things that bring despair are waste, violence, human folly, and alienation. Leigh Rigozzi, 2026 Selected artworks are all oil on panel, framed, 41.5 x 41.5 cm Through the PLATFORM annual exhibition series, which includes the UTAS Bett Gallery Award, Bett Gallery maintains its sustained commitment to supporting emerging and early career artists. PLATFORM brings together a focused selection of artists whose work reflects the range, ambition and strength of contemporary practice. For more than 15 years, the exhibition has been a key part of the gallery’s program, offering meaningful exposure at a pivotal stage in an artist’s career. More than a showcase, PLATFORM provides a professional context that helps position artists within the broader contemporary landscape, while giving audiences insight into the direction of the next generation. #leighrigozzi #bettgallery #platform26 #painting #australianartist