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Exhibitions

Wednesday 5 August
2026

Adam Elliot

Making Memoir of a Snail

ACMI
Thursday 8 August – Sunday 1 November

Group Show

The Chelsea Hotel Years 1967–69

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

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

Inside the Mirage

TarraWarra Museum of Art
Saturday 25 July – Sunday 1 November

Ray Thomas

Yeerung's Journey

Koorie Heritage Trust
Saturday 30 May – Sunday 9 August

Lygin Ang

Window Seat

Benalla Art Gallery
Monday 1 June – Monday 31 August

Christopher Pyett

Years of Colour

McClelland Gallery
Saturday 27 June – Sunday 25 October

Group Show

Spilt Milk (and hard honey)

West Space
Saturday 13 June – Saturday 8 August

Grant Nimmo

Spirits of the Green Woods

Daine Singer
Saturday 18 July – Saturday 22 August

Matt Arbuckle

Public Capacity

Daine Singer
Saturday 18 July – Saturday 22 August

Moya McKenna

Picture in a window

Neon Parc
Friday 31 July – Saturday 5 September

Eliza Hutchison

When are the aliens coming?

CAVES Gallery
Saturday 1 August – Saturday 22 August

Lyndell Brown and Charles Green

The Solid Mandala

Arc One Gallery
Wednesday 8 July – Saturday 15 August

Group Show

EMERGENCE[Y]

Melbourne Science Gallery
Saturday 6 June – Saturday 5 December

Martin Smith

The Elegant Hope

Sophie Gannon Gallery
Tuesday 21 July – Saturday 8 August

Martin Smith

The Elegant Hope

Sophie Gannon Gallery
Tuesday 21 July – Saturday 8 August

Many moons ago, publications like America’s LIFE magazine or here in Australia, PIX, were based on the photojournalistic co-dependence of image and text, with each article driven by a carefully orchestrated combination of story and image sequence. Martin Smith’s work is similarly underpinned by the dialogue between the written word and photography, but in his practice the two exist independently, before coming together in a delicate dance to create new meanings. There is no relationship between the domestic setting captured in Oysters (2026), for example, and the story contained within it. However, by playing with these interdependent codes and ways of understanding the world, Martin creates an imaginative space for the viewer where entirely new narratives and ways of seeing become possible.

Martin’s series Naked People of Taigum (2023- ) emerged from the artist’s experience of working in a one-hour photo lab in the outer Brisbane suburb of Taigum in the 1990s. Having access to people’s photographic memories enabled him to recognise a shared language of familiar events—the birthdays, holidays and everyday shenanigans caught in their snapshots—and the way in which we pose (and compose) ourselves for the camera according to different occasions. The nudes that sometimes appeared within these camera rolls also revealed their own language – in their playful responses to the camera, in the obvious trust between the photographer and subject, and in their picturing of a private/public moment. In Martin’s ode to these joyful interludes, language becomes fragmented and unreadable as individual letters decorate and seemingly feather the naked figures at the centre of each image. Like the dissembling of language that occurs in these works, these images also push against the reproducibility of photography by creating unique three-dimensional objects that are at once both image and form. While family photographs are so deeply connected to the stories we tell about them, these intimate moments are about the stories we generally don’t and probably shouldn’t share.

Location

Sophie Gannon Gallery
2 Albert St, Richmond VIC 3121, Australia

Date

Tuesday 21 July – Saturday 8 August

Save to Calendar

Website

https://sophiegannongallery.com.au/exhibition/this-elegant-hope/

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

Exhibition information

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Exhibitions

Wednesday 5 August
2026

Adam Elliot

Making Memoir of a Snail

ACMI
Thursday 8 August – Sunday 1 November

Group Show

The Chelsea Hotel Years 1967–69

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

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

Inside the Mirage

TarraWarra Museum of Art
Saturday 25 July – Sunday 1 November

Ray Thomas

Yeerung's Journey

Koorie Heritage Trust
Saturday 30 May – Sunday 9 August

Lygin Ang

Window Seat

Benalla Art Gallery
Monday 1 June – Monday 31 August

Christopher Pyett

Years of Colour

McClelland Gallery
Saturday 27 June – Sunday 25 October

Group Show

Spilt Milk (and hard honey)

West Space
Saturday 13 June – Saturday 8 August

Grant Nimmo

Spirits of the Green Woods

Daine Singer
Saturday 18 July – Saturday 22 August

Matt Arbuckle

Public Capacity

Daine Singer
Saturday 18 July – Saturday 22 August

Moya McKenna

Picture in a window

Neon Parc
Friday 31 July – Saturday 5 September

Eliza Hutchison

When are the aliens coming?

CAVES Gallery
Saturday 1 August – Saturday 22 August

Lyndell Brown and Charles Green

The Solid Mandala

Arc One Gallery
Wednesday 8 July – Saturday 15 August

Group Show

EMERGENCE[Y]

Melbourne Science Gallery
Saturday 6 June – Saturday 5 December

Martin Smith

The Elegant Hope

Sophie Gannon Gallery
Tuesday 21 July – Saturday 8 August

Martin Smith

The Elegant Hope

Sophie Gannon Gallery
Tuesday 21 July – Saturday 8 August

Many moons ago, publications like America’s LIFE magazine or here in Australia, PIX, were based on the photojournalistic co-dependence of image and text, with each article driven by a carefully orchestrated combination of story and image sequence. Martin Smith’s work is similarly underpinned by the dialogue between the written word and photography, but in his practice the two exist independently, before coming together in a delicate dance to create new meanings. There is no relationship between the domestic setting captured in Oysters (2026), for example, and the story contained within it. However, by playing with these interdependent codes and ways of understanding the world, Martin creates an imaginative space for the viewer where entirely new narratives and ways of seeing become possible.

Martin’s series Naked People of Taigum (2023- ) emerged from the artist’s experience of working in a one-hour photo lab in the outer Brisbane suburb of Taigum in the 1990s. Having access to people’s photographic memories enabled him to recognise a shared language of familiar events—the birthdays, holidays and everyday shenanigans caught in their snapshots—and the way in which we pose (and compose) ourselves for the camera according to different occasions. The nudes that sometimes appeared within these camera rolls also revealed their own language – in their playful responses to the camera, in the obvious trust between the photographer and subject, and in their picturing of a private/public moment. In Martin’s ode to these joyful interludes, language becomes fragmented and unreadable as individual letters decorate and seemingly feather the naked figures at the centre of each image. Like the dissembling of language that occurs in these works, these images also push against the reproducibility of photography by creating unique three-dimensional objects that are at once both image and form. While family photographs are so deeply connected to the stories we tell about them, these intimate moments are about the stories we generally don’t and probably shouldn’t share.

Location

Sophie Gannon Gallery
2 Albert St, Richmond VIC 3121, Australia

Date

Tuesday 21 July – Saturday 8 August

Save to Calendar

Website

https://sophiegannongallery.com.au/exhibition/this-elegant-hope/

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

Exhibition information

Personal information

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