Art Gallery of Ballarat

22/06/2026

The Gallery Shop will be closed for stocktake this Tuesday - Friday.

If you've got your eye on something new, our online shop is open 24/7 for winter warmers by Otto and Spike, Wah-Wah and more. 🧦🧤

Our physical doors will re-open on Saturday - we appreciate your understanding.

🧡 The Gallery Shop team

15/06/2026

Richard Noon is an avid flyer and former travel agency CEO who has visited over 120 countries, combining his love of travel and photography through the Richard Noon Endowment. The annual gift helps build upon the Art Gallery of Ballarat Collection's photographic artworks, including our most recent acquisitions by Taloi Havini and Naomi Hobson.

Pictured here is the photographic work of Naomi Hobson, a Southern Kaantju/Umpila woman who lives in the small town of Coen, Cape York Peninsula. She is inspired by her direct environment, her connection to Country and her ancestors’ ties and relationships with their traditional lands.

These images are from the series 'Adolescent Wonderland', which rejects mainstream stereotypes and explores the energy of young people expressing their individuality, bravery and confidence.

Images:

'Fish Boys' 2022 and 'River Mermaid' 2019 from the series ‘Adolescent Wonderland’, digital prints on paper, 128.8 x 88.9 cm. Art Gallery of Ballarat Collection. Purchased with funds from the Richard Noon Endowment, 2025 © Naomi Hobson, courtesy the artist and Vivien Anderson Gallery

10/06/2026

🎨 Art Explorers - School Holiday Program 🎨

Kids and families are invited to join us in the Gallery Studio (temporarily located off Alfred Deakin Place) this winter! Ahead of the World Press Photo exhibition, our explorers begin with a simple idea: how many different stories can one photograph tell?

Ages 6–8
Picture to Story
Start with a picture—see where it takes you. In this playful workshop, kids will use photographs as a starting point for imagination.

Ages 9–12
Image Remix
In Image Remix, participants use their own photographs as a starting point, then experiment with cutting, layering, drawing into, and rearranging images to create new meanings.

Ages 13–15
Reframed
Every image is shaped by choices—what’s included, what’s left out, and how it’s seen. This studio-style workshop invites teens to experiment with reworking photographs through drawing, collage, text, and sequencing.

Choose your time and session via the booking link here: https://bit.ly/3Beldho

04/06/2026

On now at Backspace Gallery - Kate Gorman: 'Sirens'

Gorman's exquisite work gently draws the viewer in, but closer inspection reveals the artist's reflection on human settlement in Victoria's coastal regions, and the creeping environmental impact.

See Sirens at Backspace Gallery until 12 July

📸: Tara C Moore Photography

01/06/2026

We'd love to see Ballarat win Victoria's 2026 Top Tourism Town - if you would too, vote below! 👇

We won bronze in 2024 and silver in 2025 – can we take home the gold this year?!

Ballarat is in the running to be named Victoria's 2026 Top Tourism Town and we need your help to nab the crown!

Vote for Ballarat at https://bit.ly/4wXE5Ns for your chance to win a luxurious Melbourne escape for two.

And make sure you also vote for our Pyrenees neighbour Avoca, which is chasing the title of Top Tiny Tourism Town.

Voting closes Friday 26 June at 5pm.

29/05/2026

New on the Art Screen - Hannah Brontë: ‘POWA WAVE’

For Pride Month, Art Gallery of Ballarat presents the work of Hannah Brontë. Shot on the beaches of Kombumerri/Yugambeh country, Coolangatta, 'POWA WAVE' captures the natural beauty of an ocean sunrise as experienced by two Q***r lovers.

For the artist, ‘being a woman in the surf, let alone a Q***r woman, takes a sport so freeing and transcendent and makes it a radical act of defiance.’

Image: Hannah Brontë 'POWA WAVE' [film still] 2022, HD video with sound, 5 min 29 sec. Models: Aubrey and Macca. Videography: Fastback Studios. Image courtesy the artist.

25/05/2026

Opening this Saturday 30 May at Backspace Gallery - Kate Gorman: ‘Sirens’ 🚨

‘Siren’ is a word found in Homer’s Odyssey to name the mythical female deities who lured seafarers into danger with their beguiling songs. Today, sirens are an alert for urgent danger.

Ballarat artist Kate Gorman draws on both meanings to express the impact of tourism, suburban growth and ‘progress’ on Victoria’s coastal landscape. While the lure of beautiful beaches draws increasing human settlement, this popularity is set to destroy the ‘untouched’ natural beauty people are drawn to.

Gorman’s delicate, half-human figures are designed to charm and lure the viewer into the artist’s underlying sense of environmental peril.

This week Backspace is closed for the installation of Sirens. We’ll re-open on Saturday.

Image: Kate Gorman ‘Messenger series’ 2022, bronze with gold leaf and hair, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist.

22/05/2026

We’re delighted to have recently acquired May Vale’s ‘Tasmanian waratah’ for the Collection. This acquisition reinforces our commitment to highlighting work made by women artists who have been overlooked. This work also adds to our collection of Ballarat artists and botanical artworks.

May Vale was born in Ballarat in 1862. Unlike many Australian female artists of her time, she attended art school in England and Paris as well as Melbourne. Vale was an ardent fighter for the recognition of the professional standing of women artists.

She was one of the first women to be elected to the Council of the Victorian Artists Society in 1900.

Image: May Vale ‘Tasmanian waratah’ circa 1920. oil on board. Art Gallery of Ballarat Collection. Purchased with funds from the Hilton White Estate, 2025.

20/05/2026

✨ It's National Volunteer Week ✨

This week (and every week) we're proud to celebrate our volunteer Gallery Guides who are passionate, committed and welcoming.

Here are some of the wonderful people who contribute significantly to each visitor's experience - they're looking forward to guiding during World Press Photo at the Mining Exchange this August.

Pictured:
Meg, Lynne and Fiona
Gordon and Dinah

National Volunteer Week runs from 18 - 24 May.

15/05/2026

Entries are now open for the Clunes Ceramic Award 2026.

This bi-annual exhibition showcases outstanding ceramic practice in partnership with the Art Gallery of Ballarat and Castlemaine Art Museum. It is also supported by the Hugh D. T Williamson Foundation.

Every second iteration, the Art Gallery of Ballarat accepts the winning work into the permanent Collection. In 2017, we received the luscious 'Pearl jugs' by Macedon artist Vanessa Lucas (pictured). This year will see another work enter the Gallery's Collection.

Ceramicists who'd like to enter can do so until 9 August 2026. The winning works will be on show at Esmond Gallery in Clunes from 4 October - 1 November.

To learn more visit clunesceramicaward.org.au

Vanessa Lucas 'Pearl jugs' 2017 glazed porcelain. Art Gallery of Ballarat Collection. Gift of the Clunes Ceramic Award, 2017; © Copyright Vanessa Lucas.