Drill Hall Gallery

Drill Hall Gallery Situated on Australian National University campus. The venue of choice for many of Australia’s leading contemporary artists, curators and collectors.

Closed temporarily until mid 2026 for renovation. The Drill Hall Gallery supports the arts in the Ngunnawal and Ngambri region by presenting exhibitions developed in conjunction with the wide ranging academic interests of the ANU and coinciding with major conferences and public events.

LAST WEEK: Painting Itself / 绘画本身 closes this Sunday 28 June, 4pmANU School of Art & Design GalleryOpen: Tue–Fri 10:30am...
23/06/2026

LAST WEEK: Painting Itself / 绘画本身 closes this Sunday 28 June, 4pm
ANU School of Art & Design Gallery
Open: Tue–Fri 10:30am–3pm, Sat and Sun 11am–4pm

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Image: Painting Itself / 绘画本身, installation view, ANU School of Art & Design Gallery, 2026. Photo: David Paterson

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Painting Itself / 绘画本身 continues until 28 JuneANU School of Art & Design GalleryOpen: Tue–Fri 10:30am–3pm, Sat and Sun 1...
20/06/2026

Painting Itself / 绘画本身 continues until 28 June
ANU School of Art & Design Gallery
Open: Tue–Fri 10:30am–3pm, Sat and Sun 11am–4pm

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Image: Painting Itself / 绘画本身, installation view, ANU School of Art & Design Gallery, 2026. Photo: David Paterson

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Painting Itself / 绘画本身: Jon Chan, 'Tochi’s Ghost', 2021, oil on canvas, 48 × 66 cm"Jon Chan comes at this idea of the me...
18/06/2026

Painting Itself / 绘画本身: Jon Chan, 'Tochi’s Ghost', 2021, oil on canvas, 48 × 66 cm

"Jon Chan comes at this idea of the medium’s social utility quite differently from the other four painters [in the exhibition]. I would say he is a kind of ‘history painter’. … Two of the works in the exhibition are from his Hong Lim series from 2022, which comprises perhaps 10 or 12 paintings overall. Hong Lim Park is a civic ‘speakers’ park in the centre of Singapore that was named after an ancestor of Chan’s, a distant great-grandfather. It’s a place where small demonstrations and public speaking are legal …"

"At the centre of Chan’s Hong Lim series is a feeling of anxiety, or complicity perhaps. In the context of the paintings, he remembers his ancestor Hong Lim as a business trader and successful entrepreneur, which included o***m trading. In … Tochi’s Ghost, he juxtaposes the memory of his Singaporean ancestor (and the civic history of Singapore) with the image of four lonely people who had come to the present-day Hong Lim Park to demonstrate against the hanging at Changi Prison of a convicted drug trafficker whose name was Iwuchukwu Amara Tochi."
— Jonathan Nichols

Extract from ‘Painting Is Memory’, a conversation between exhibition curator Jonathan Nichols and art critic and writer Quentin Sprague in the exhibition catalogue.

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Painting Itself / 绘画本身 continues until 28 June 2026
Open: Tue–Fri 10:30am–3pm, Sat and Sun 11am–4pm
ANU School of Art & Design Gallery

June Friends Night: Megalo Print StudioFriday 26 June, 5:30pmMegalo Print StudioRegister via the link in our bio or at d...
12/06/2026

June Friends Night: Megalo Print Studio

Friday 26 June, 5:30pm
Megalo Print Studio
Register via the link in our bio or at dhg.anu.edu.au

This Friends Night we venture once more over the bridge, this time to Megalo Print Studio!

Friends are invited to preview newly commissioned works for University House by ANU School of Art & Design alumni Lani Sheaan and Naomi Zouwer. Joined by artist and General Manager at Megalo Print Studio – Francis Kenna and Drill Hall Gallery Exhibitions Curator – Hetty Gascoigne, Friends will hear about Lani and Naomi's respective art practices and their experience of translating their work to print.

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If not already a member you can join the Friends online or over the phone.

While the Drill Hall is closed for roof remediation, Friends events will take place at alternate venues on and off campus. If you require accessibility accommodations or a Personal Emergency Evacuation plan please contact [email protected]

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Image: Lani Sheaan and Bronte Bell in the Lithography studio. Photo: Cassie Abraham

Un Cheng, '啤酒 大麻和菠菜 (Beer, W**d and Spinach)', 2020, oil on canvas, 150.2 × 100.2 cm. Courtesy of Blindspot Gallery"Chen...
11/06/2026

Un Cheng, '啤酒 大麻和菠菜 (Beer, W**d and Spinach)', 2020, oil on canvas, 150.2 × 100.2 cm. Courtesy of Blindspot Gallery

"Cheng does very much use an interior framing. The weight of her painting processes reflects her own psychic state – it’s the point of impulse and reflex in her work. She doesn’t usually paint her own body in the paintings, at least not as a corporeal ‘body’. However, [啤酒 大麻和菠菜 (Beer, W**d and Spinach)] is a kind of self-portrait. It was painted in 2020, after months of the democracy marches in Hong Kong and their eventual winding down. Here, the broken figure contorting over the toilet is Cheng herself. It is a personal collapse and exhaustion. In our conversation, she explained, ‘this was my life at that time’. It was five years ago now, and Cheng was not long out of art school."

"A question might be: do we only see Cheng and her immediate context [in this painting]? Or can we look beyond her? At what point does Beer, W**d and Spinach become (if this is the case) more than just a record of her own specific experience and capture something more general?"

— Jonathan Nichols

Extract from ‘Painting Is Memory’, a conversation between exhibition curator Jonathan Nichols and art critic and writer Quentin Sprague in the exhibition catalogue.

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Painting Itself / 绘画本身 continues until 28 June 2026
Open: Tue–Fri 10:30am–3pm, Sat and Sun 11am–4pm
ANU School of Art & Design Gallery


WORKSHOP: Paintings within Painting Itself / 绘画本身Join artist Elisa Crossing for a watercolour life drawing class amongst...
10/06/2026

WORKSHOP: Paintings within Painting Itself / 绘画本身

Join artist Elisa Crossing for a watercolour life drawing class amongst the exhibition Painting Itself / 绘画本身 at ANU School of Art & Design Gallery. During the class participants will have the opportunity to work observationally, and consider the model in relation to the works of art. Materials will be provided.

Wednesday 17 June, 5:30pm – 7:30pm
ANU School of Art & Design Gallery
Tickets: $40 general / $25 students
Available via link in bio or dhg.anu.edu.au

This class is inspired by Crossing’s series 'Paintings within Paintings' from her 2023 exhibition 'Slow looking'. She writes: “Paintings affirm that slow looking is active, subjective and generative, drawing to the surface our deep thoughts, imaginings and memories where they can be laid bare for our reflection.”

Elisa Crossing lives and works in Canberra on the custodial lands of the Ngnunawal and Ngambri people. A graduate of the ANU and Canberra School of Art, her professional career as a visual artist spans three decades with ten solo exhibitions and over 30 group shows, exhibiting paintings drawings and 3D installation works, both locally and nationally. Crossing has been an innovative and enthusiastic arts educator for over twenty-five years, developing and delivering original content through practice-led teaching, as a lecturer at the ANU, including the School of Art & Design.

Numbers for this class are limited, please book early to avoid disappointment.

Important information:
- All skill levels are welcome
- The life drawing is based around an unclothed/partially draped model
- Paint, palettes, paper and some brushes will be provided. You are welcome to bring your own preferred brushes and watercolour or gouache paints
- Drinks will be available for purchase

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Image: Installation view, Noor Mahnun, 'Homework' 2024, oil on linen, 83 × 123 cm (framed). Private collection

FLOOR TALK: Painting Itself / 绘画本身Join us for a floor talk and tour of Painting Itself / 绘画本身Sunday 14 June, 1pmFree, no...
10/06/2026

FLOOR TALK: Painting Itself / 绘画本身
Join us for a floor talk and tour of Painting Itself / 绘画
本身

Sunday 14 June, 1pm
Free, no registrations required

Afterwards join us for Lecture 3: Abstraction, representation and expression in Yolŋu art with Professor Howard Morphy at Coombs Lecture Theatre.
Sunday 14 June, 2pm

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Painting Itself / 绘画本身 continues until 28 June
ANU School of Art & Design Gallery
Open: Tue–Fri 10:30am–3pm, Sat and Sun 11am–4pm

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Image: Painting Itself / 绘画本身, installation view, ANU School of Art & Design Gallery, 2026. Photo: David Paterson

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THIS SUNDAY: Lecture 3: Abstraction, representation and expression in Yolŋu artProfessor Howard Morphy14 June, 2pmCoombs...
09/06/2026

THIS SUNDAY: Lecture 3: Abstraction, representation and expression in Yolŋu art
Professor Howard Morphy

14 June, 2pm
Coombs Lecture Theatre
$10 / free for Friends/students
dhg.anu.edu.au

Abstraction, representation and expression are key terms in art history. In categorising works of art they are often separated as categories — ‘abstract’, ‘representational’ — or combined together as in ‘abstract expressionism’. Non-Western art works often find themselves placed in one or other category on the basis of form alone in order to be positioned in a global space. In this lecture Morphy will be reflecting on fifty years of watching Yolŋu artists at work and occasionally interrupting their work with questions. The lecture will focus on how these concepts can be useful in elucidating Yolŋu art practice, image making, and aesthetic sensibilities; not by positioning their images in categories but by recognising synergies in art practice that may well characterise art-making as a mode of action across place and time.

Rather than surveying the vast corpus of Yolŋu art as a whole Morphy will focus on artists of a single clan, the Maŋgalili. The lecture is also a journey from Melville Hall Annex at the Australian National University where Narritjin Maymuru and his son Banapana Maymuru had their studio in 1978 as Creative Arts Fellows, to the 2024 Venice Biennale where Narritjin’s classificatory daughter Naminapu Maymuru White, an ANU Creative Arts Fellow, was one of the selected artists.

Morphy has conducted extensive fieldwork with the Yolŋu people of Northern Australia since 1974 and published widely in anthropology and museum studies with a primary focus on art, material culture and land rights. His pioneering analysis of Yolŋu art and aesthetics has been foundational in the study and understanding of Aboriginal art and non-Aboriginal art in academia. He was an expert witness in the Blue Mud Bay case, in which Yolŋu art as law (rom) was integral to the case. Morphy has advocated the inclusion of Yolŋu voices, inviting leaders to visit and contribute to ANU research, acknowledging and incorporating their work as integral to Australia’s cultural and intellectual life.

Address

Kingsley Street
Canberra, ACT
2601

Opening Hours

Wednesday 10am - 5pm
Thursday 10am - 5pm
Friday 10am - 5pm
Saturday 10am - 5pm
Sunday 10am - 5pm

Telephone

(02) 6125 5832

Website

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