Welcome to The Novocastrian’s fortnightly art guide, a curated overview of current and upcoming exhibitions across Newcastle and the Hunter. Stay connected to the people, places, and shows shaping our local creative community.

As the year comes to a close, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on what has been achieved with The Novocastrian in its first year.

The platform was developed and launched after more than 400 hours of hands-on development, with a simple goal: to create a free, central art guide for Newcastle that makes it easier to discover exhibitions across the city.

Since launch, the site has:

  • Listed 19 galleries across Newcastle

  • Promoted 70 exhibitions

  • Rolled out a QR-code campaign, with hundreds of stickers distributed and most galleries now displaying them at their doors

  • Grown a strong and engaged email audience, with an average 76% open rate

  • Reached over 30,000 views on Instagram, with steady ongoing growth

  • Recorded 3,239 website views from 2,147 visitors

The Novocastrian is now also receiving generous support from local businesses including Pukara, Eckersleys, and Method Brewing. This support is being reinvested directly into paid Instagram promotion for exhibitions, helping local shows reach wider audiences.

Looking ahead, next year will see the rollout of several new features and improvements. I’m excited to share more as plans take shape.

Thank you for taking an early interest in the project, and for helping it grow by sharing the site with friends, family, and fellow art lovers (please feel free to forward this email to a friend).

Wishing you a restful Christmas filled with love, music and art.

David Griffen

Now Showing

'COMPLETELY NORMAL: & OTHER LIES' BY KIMBERLY SWAN — LEDA Gallery
LEDA Gallery

Completely Normal and Other Lies

Kimberly Swan’s observations of everyday objects, interiors and familiar scenes take on new meaning in Completely Normal and Other Lies. Created over twelve months, the works began without a set theme, gradually becoming a personal record of her experience of perimenopause. Through oil paintings, installation…
October 10, 2026 – October 21, 2026
Re — Pseudonym Gallery
Pseudonym Gallery

Re

Pseudonym Gallery warmly invites you to 'Re'a solo exhibition by Newcastle based artist Joshua Bollback Butler. Joshua is a storyteller, creating rich tapestries of flora and fauna, woven together to give viewers a window into his soul. Come and join us for drinks on Saturday…
October 3, 2026 – October 17, 2026
Life and Line — Back to Back Galleries
Back to Back Galleries

Life and Line

Life and Line brings together the work of Lynnette Passeri and Elizabeth Mead in a conversation between ceramics and painting. Across clay and canvas, line becomes contour, gesture and rhythm, revealing the movement of the hand and the process of making. The exhibition explores the…
October 2, 2026 – October 18, 2026
Muse — Newcastle Art Gallery
Newcastle Art Gallery

Muse

Muse is first major survey of globally recognised and Newcastle-based artist Angela Tiatia. Drawing together twenty years of video, photography and installation, this exhibition invites audiences to be immersed in the largest ever presentation of Tiatia’s visually luscious and politically incisive art practice. This timely…
September 26, 2026 – February 21, 2027
Adam Manning: Embodied Rhythm — Museum of Art and Culture, yapang
Museum of Art and Culture, yapang

Adam Manning: Embodied Rhythm

Embodied Rhythm explores rhythm as something lived, felt and shared across sound, painting and moving image. Rather than treating rhythm as something fixed or measured, the exhibition considers how pulse and pattern are shaped by memory, place, culture and relationships. At the centre of the…
September 26, 2026 – November 29, 2026
Hunter Wetlands Centre Artspace

Wetlands Impressions

Local artists Merran Kilgour and Eugenia Dunlevie have joined forces for "Wetlands Impressions" on show at the Hunter Wetlands Centre Artspace from 26 September 2026. Merran and Eugenia share a passion for capturing images of the landscape in all its guises. The multi award-winning artists…
September 26, 2026 – October 22, 2026
Soft Edge — Straitjacket
Straitjacket

Soft Edge

Soft Edge brings together embroidery, textiles, painting and assemblage in a body of work exploring repetition, mirrored imagery and imagined narratives. Helena Newcombe combines embroidery with acrylic paint, using stitching to add texture and detail to painted surfaces. Animals appear throughout the exhibition as symbolic,…
September 26, 2026 – October 18, 2026
Straitjacket

The Surrounds Around

Sydney artist Liz Payne presents her first exhibition in Newcastle with The Surrounds Around, a multidisciplinary body of work spanning painting, textiles and design. Payne works across art, craft and design, using bold colour, pattern, texture and form to explore abstraction. In this exhibition, botanical,…
September 26, 2026 – October 18, 2026
MYTH — Straitjacket
Straitjacket

Myth

In MYTH, Hunter Valley artist Bianca Vern-Barnett explores the point where the inner, imagined world meets collective memory, storytelling and shared experience. Her practice begins with stories that capture her attention, considering why certain narratives endure and what they might reveal about personal experience. Approaching…
September 26, 2026 – October 18, 2026
The Lock-Up

Izabela Pluta / Cavitation

A monumental solo project by internationally recognised, Newcastle-based contemporary artist Izabela Pluta as part of a major international co-commission with TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art, Poland, and presented with key partner New Annual Festival. Cavitation unfolds across water, sound and fractured cartographies, examining how systems…
September 25, 2026 – January 31, 2027
" T R I O " — The Owens Collective (The Show Room)
The Owens Collective (The Show Room)

TRIO

An exhibition by practising artists Yvette Ten-Bohmer, Andy Devine and Grant Vercoe The exhibition's title creates a space where each artist exists independently while remaining connected within a greater whole. Like individual voices in conversation, their distinct practices come together to reveal a shared sense…
September 25, 2026 – October 11, 2026
Welcome to the Suburbs — Newcastle Art Space
Newcastle Art Space

Welcome to the Suburbs

'Welcome to the Suburbs' is a group show featuring works by artists across a range of media inspired by their suburb. We have a special guest artist who is well known for her images of suburban dwellings Catherine O'Donnell and currently represented by Dominik Mersch…
September 24, 2026 – October 18, 2026

Coming Soon

Tender

Jackie Gorring Jill Orr
October 16, 2026 – October 31, 2026
Opening: October 16, 2026 — 5:00pm
cstudios art gallery
Tender brings together established artists Jackie Gorring and Jill Orr in a collaborative exhibition of printmaking, sculpture and watercolour. Based in Victoria, Gorring works across handmade relief prints, sculpture and ceramics, with a practice characterised by humour, experimentation and a sense of creative play. Orr… Read more
The Novocastrian - Year One — Wester Gallery

The Novocastrian – Year One

Dino Consalvo Jen Denzin Jono Everett Ben Gallagher Jacquie Garcia Peter Gardiner Jess Gilbert David Griffen Moj Habibi Harley Kirkwood Justin Lees Rachel Milne Braddon Snape Bridie Watt Graham Wilson Kara Wood
November 6, 2026 – November 21, 2026
Opening: November 6, 2026 — 6:00pm
Wester Gallery
Join us to celebrate a year of The Novocastrian and the artists who make Newcastle and the Hunter such a vibrant place to experience visual art. The Novocastrian: Year One brings together a group of artists who have all been featured by The Novocastrian over… Read more

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