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May 2026

June 2026

July 2026

August 2026

September 2026

Exhibitions

Thursday 14 May
2026

Adam Elliot

Making Memoir of a Snail

ACMI
Thursday 8 August – Sunday 1 November

David Bradley

EPOCH

Lyon Housemuseum
Thursday 31 July – Sunday 31 May

Group Show

Darebin Art Prize 2026

Bundoora Homestead Art Centre
Wednesday 25 February – Saturday 20 June

Group Show

TarraWarra International 2026: System Release

TarraWarra Museum of Art
Saturday 21 March – Sunday 5 July

Aleks Danko

A(GAP)E

McClelland Gallery
Saturday 14 March – Sunday 14 June

Group Show

The Chelsea Hotel Years 1967–69

Heide Museum of Modern Art
Saturday 28 February – Sunday 16 August

Kait James

Kiss my Moom

Neon Parc
Friday 17 April – Saturday 16 May

Group Show

Future Creatives

Geelong Gallery
Saturday 28 February – Sunday 17 May

Group Show

Art + Language

Geelong Gallery
Saturday 14 March – Sunday 17 May

yEAH / dUNNO

Jon Campbell

Geelong Gallery
Saturday 28 February – Sunday 24 May

Group Show

Minimal

Geelong Gallery
Saturday 14 March – Sunday 17 May

Group Show

A New Universe—Architecture in Print

Geelong Gallery
Saturday 28 February – Sunday 7 June

Jeff Raglus

Free Jazz

Boom Gallery
Thursday 23 April – Saturday 16 May

Yoko Georgiou

Flow

Boom Gallery
Thursday 23 April – Saturday 16 May

John Perceval

All That We Are

Heide Museum of Modern Art
Saturday 21 March – Sunday 12 July

Simone Slee

Light Time

Heide Museum of Modern Art
Saturday 28 March – Sunday 28 June

Badra Aji

Get the boy a dog and call it a day

Heide Museum of Modern Art
Saturday 14 March – Sunday 16 August

Group Show

LABOUR & LOVE

West Space
Saturday 9 May – Thursday 14 May

Rob Mchaffie

Designer Shell

Daine Singer
Saturday 2 May – Saturday 30 May

Group Show

Octopus 26: Melange

Gertrude Contemporary
Saturday 11 April – Saturday 30 May

Moorina Bonini

We Were Never Meant to be Contained

Gertrude Glasshouse
Friday 17 April – Saturday 16 May

Julius von Bismarck

This is not the storm

Australian Centre for Contemporary Art
Friday 17 April – Sunday 14 June

Aleks Danko

An Ecology of Ideas

Sutton Gallery
Saturday 18 April – Saturday 16 May

Rachael Robb

In Time

Sutton Gallery
Saturday 18 April – Saturday 16 May

Group Show

Form and Function—Australian Studio Ceramics

Geelong Gallery
Saturday 21 February – Sunday 17 May

Group Show

Time Moves Through These Walls: 40 years of Linden New Art

Linden New Art
Saturday 28 February – Sunday 17 May

Lisa Waup

TRACE

MARS Gallery
Wednesday 29 April – Saturday 16 May

Group Show

dribbling onward and nowhere

CAVES Gallery
Friday 1 May – Saturday 23 May

Group Show

‘Guwarguwarmirri’ – Colours of the Rainbow

Tolarno Galleries
Saturday 2 May – Saturday 16 May

Marina Rolfe

The Edge of Holding

Arc One Gallery
Wednesday 15 April – Saturday 23 May

Group Show

White Light/White Heat

Station Gallery
Saturday 2 May – Saturday 6 June

Archer Davies

Borrowed Blue

MARS Gallery
Thursday 21 May – Friday 19 June

Look up in most parts of inner-Melbourne and you will see the decorative parapets of Victorian single and double storey terraces. On a good day, you can see their pediments, balustrades, urns and finials cutting a proud and eccentric silhouette against a blue sky.

My series of oil studies began with a fascination with these gold-rush era facades (c. 1850–1890). I was drawn to their faded former glory, their sunburnt, damaged and graffiti’d surfaces and the way they compress a European classical vocabulary into a hybrid, improvised architectural language. The facades themselves are not structurally integral to the buildings they front. They function as a kind of surface—an applied facade carrying symbolic weight. In the case of the single-storey terrace or ‘workers cottage’, they represented for their working and lower middle-class owners an aspirational alignment with European taste.

The parapets were often designed by draftsmen rather than architects and relied on British pattern books. They were then constructed by plasterers and renderers, using local materials and moulds for repetition. When viewed in a row, the result is a push-pull between uniformity and variation, with each house asserting a little individuality within a uniform rhythm.

The effect for me is a kind of civic theatre where borrowed styles act like a dramatic, symbolic mask for the house.

In approaching how to paint these structures, I returned to the charged blue of Bacchus and Ariadne. In Titian’s work, blue operates not only as description but as a pictorial force. Drawing on Venetian techniques of glazing, I place these inherited facades, with their happy melange of classical influences, beneath an intensified blue. The colour, like the architecture itself, is borrowed: carried across time, translated, and set against the particular light of Melbourne.

Location

MARS Gallery
7 James St, Windsor VIC, Australia

Date

Thursday 21 May – Friday 19 June

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Website

https://marsgallery.com.au/exhibitions/113-borrowed-blue-archer-davies/

All exhibition content on this website has been sourced from the exhibiting gallery’s website or provided by other art enthusiasts. We do not own or seek to own any of this material. If you are concerned about any misuse of your content, please let us know here.

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Exhibitions

Thursday 14 May
2026

Adam Elliot

Making Memoir of a Snail

ACMI
Thursday 8 August – Sunday 1 November

David Bradley

EPOCH

Lyon Housemuseum
Thursday 31 July – Sunday 31 May

Group Show

Darebin Art Prize 2026

Bundoora Homestead Art Centre
Wednesday 25 February – Saturday 20 June

Group Show

TarraWarra International 2026: System Release

TarraWarra Museum of Art
Saturday 21 March – Sunday 5 July

Aleks Danko

A(GAP)E

McClelland Gallery
Saturday 14 March – Sunday 14 June

Group Show

The Chelsea Hotel Years 1967–69

Heide Museum of Modern Art
Saturday 28 February – Sunday 16 August

Kait James

Kiss my Moom

Neon Parc
Friday 17 April – Saturday 16 May

Group Show

Future Creatives

Geelong Gallery
Saturday 28 February – Sunday 17 May

Group Show

Art + Language

Geelong Gallery
Saturday 14 March – Sunday 17 May

yEAH / dUNNO

Jon Campbell

Geelong Gallery
Saturday 28 February – Sunday 24 May

Group Show

Minimal

Geelong Gallery
Saturday 14 March – Sunday 17 May

Group Show

A New Universe—Architecture in Print

Geelong Gallery
Saturday 28 February – Sunday 7 June

Jeff Raglus

Free Jazz

Boom Gallery
Thursday 23 April – Saturday 16 May

Yoko Georgiou

Flow

Boom Gallery
Thursday 23 April – Saturday 16 May

John Perceval

All That We Are

Heide Museum of Modern Art
Saturday 21 March – Sunday 12 July

Simone Slee

Light Time

Heide Museum of Modern Art
Saturday 28 March – Sunday 28 June

Badra Aji

Get the boy a dog and call it a day

Heide Museum of Modern Art
Saturday 14 March – Sunday 16 August

Group Show

LABOUR & LOVE

West Space
Saturday 9 May – Thursday 14 May

Rob Mchaffie

Designer Shell

Daine Singer
Saturday 2 May – Saturday 30 May

Group Show

Octopus 26: Melange

Gertrude Contemporary
Saturday 11 April – Saturday 30 May

Moorina Bonini

We Were Never Meant to be Contained

Gertrude Glasshouse
Friday 17 April – Saturday 16 May

Julius von Bismarck

This is not the storm

Australian Centre for Contemporary Art
Friday 17 April – Sunday 14 June

Aleks Danko

An Ecology of Ideas

Sutton Gallery
Saturday 18 April – Saturday 16 May

Rachael Robb

In Time

Sutton Gallery
Saturday 18 April – Saturday 16 May

Group Show

Form and Function—Australian Studio Ceramics

Geelong Gallery
Saturday 21 February – Sunday 17 May

Group Show

Time Moves Through These Walls: 40 years of Linden New Art

Linden New Art
Saturday 28 February – Sunday 17 May

Lisa Waup

TRACE

MARS Gallery
Wednesday 29 April – Saturday 16 May

Group Show

dribbling onward and nowhere

CAVES Gallery
Friday 1 May – Saturday 23 May

Group Show

‘Guwarguwarmirri’ – Colours of the Rainbow

Tolarno Galleries
Saturday 2 May – Saturday 16 May

Marina Rolfe

The Edge of Holding

Arc One Gallery
Wednesday 15 April – Saturday 23 May

Group Show

White Light/White Heat

Station Gallery
Saturday 2 May – Saturday 6 June

Archer Davies

Borrowed Blue

MARS Gallery
Thursday 21 May – Friday 19 June

Look up in most parts of inner-Melbourne and you will see the decorative parapets of Victorian single and double storey terraces. On a good day, you can see their pediments, balustrades, urns and finials cutting a proud and eccentric silhouette against a blue sky.

My series of oil studies began with a fascination with these gold-rush era facades (c. 1850–1890). I was drawn to their faded former glory, their sunburnt, damaged and graffiti’d surfaces and the way they compress a European classical vocabulary into a hybrid, improvised architectural language. The facades themselves are not structurally integral to the buildings they front. They function as a kind of surface—an applied facade carrying symbolic weight. In the case of the single-storey terrace or ‘workers cottage’, they represented for their working and lower middle-class owners an aspirational alignment with European taste.

The parapets were often designed by draftsmen rather than architects and relied on British pattern books. They were then constructed by plasterers and renderers, using local materials and moulds for repetition. When viewed in a row, the result is a push-pull between uniformity and variation, with each house asserting a little individuality within a uniform rhythm.

The effect for me is a kind of civic theatre where borrowed styles act like a dramatic, symbolic mask for the house.

In approaching how to paint these structures, I returned to the charged blue of Bacchus and Ariadne. In Titian’s work, blue operates not only as description but as a pictorial force. Drawing on Venetian techniques of glazing, I place these inherited facades, with their happy melange of classical influences, beneath an intensified blue. The colour, like the architecture itself, is borrowed: carried across time, translated, and set against the particular light of Melbourne.

Location

MARS Gallery
7 James St, Windsor VIC, Australia

Date

Thursday 21 May – Friday 19 June

Save to Calendar

Google

Website

https://marsgallery.com.au/exhibitions/113-borrowed-blue-archer-davies/

All exhibition content on this website has been sourced from the exhibiting gallery’s website or provided by other art enthusiasts. We do not own or seek to own any of this material. If you are concerned about any misuse of your content, please let us know here.

Suggest a change

Suggest an edit or change to this exhibition

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