Steve Dow

Writer

Steve Dow is a Melbourne-born, Sydney-based arts writer, whose profiles, essays, previews and reviews range across the visual arts, theatre, film and television for The Saturday Paper, Guardian Australia, The Monthly, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Sunday Life, Limelight and VAULT.

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Place-driven Practice

Running for just two weeks across various locations in greater Walyalup, the Fremantle Biennale: Sanctuary, seeks to invite artists and audiences to engage with the built, natural and historic environment of the region.

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Restoring Stories

Key artworks from the East Kimberley Art Movement have been restored and are on display in Ride on, shine on at the South Australian Museum.

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Object Lessons with Kyoko Hashimoto

For contemporary jeweller Kyoko Hashimoto, an exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia marks a shift in her approach to materials and method, with a renewed focus on sustainability.

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Looking Forward, Looking Back with Lisa Reihana

Auckland-born and raised artist Lisa Reihana is ever the optimist, creating two new works signifying social cohesion to hang outside two Australian arts venues—Ngununggula, and Sydney Contemporary at Carriageworks —just as dark divisions seek to undermine the value of migration and Indigenous sovereignty.

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Senses and symbols with Mitch Cairns

Mitch Cairns’s latest solo exhibition Restless Legs, now showing at the Wollongong Art Gallery, draws on symbols—from literature, mythology, nature, and home life—to find new pathways into painting.

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Resisting rules with Janet Dawson

At 90, Janet Dawson has spent a life drawn to the light and energy of the natural and celestial worlds as she crosses boundaries of abstraction and figuration. A retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales charts the evolution of her practice.

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Cultural exchange on the international stage

Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890–1940, co-curated by the Art Gallery of South Australia and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, celebrates 50 Australian women artists who travelled to Europe during the early 20th century.

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Janenne Eaton reflects the impact of the digital world on the natural

Janenne Eaton’s first major career survey, Lines of Sight—Frame and Horizon opens at Geelong Gallery. With a lifetime of environmental work and appreciation, the work reflects on the omnipotence of technology, capturing the essential commentary of humanity’s effect on the natural world.

News

Bruce Johnson McLean appointed First Nations curatorial fellow of the 2026 Biennale of Sydney

Bruce Johnson McLean, one of Australia’s leading voices on First Nations art, has been appointed the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain First Nations curatorial fellow for the next Biennale of Sydney. Steve Dow talks with Johnson McLean on his storied history, and what he hopes to achieve in the 2026 Biennale.

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Shadow hunting with James Tylor

The quietly evocative work of James Tylor reimagines imperial legacies and illuminates a hidden past. Turrangka… In The Shadows, Tylor’s touring retrospective exhibition, is now showing at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery.

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Marikit Santiago’s divine interventions

In her audacious new exhibition, the Filipina Australian artist Marikit Santiago skewers the myths of the western canon and give pleasure and power—as experienced by women of colour—an arresting new form.

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Imants Tillers gets metaphysical

In his latest exhibition, now showing at Bett Gallery, Postmodern painter and writer Imants Tillers is influenced by a variety of sources including the metaphysical style of Italian artist Georgio de Chirico.

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Steve Dow

Writer

Steve Dow's Articles

Place-driven Practice

Restoring Stories

Object Lessons with Kyoko Hashimoto

Looking Forward, Looking Back with Lisa Reihana

Senses and symbols with Mitch Cairns

Resisting rules with Janet Dawson

Cultural exchange on the international stage

Janenne Eaton reflects the impact of the digital world on the natural

Bruce Johnson McLean appointed First Nations curatorial fellow of the 2026 Biennale of Sydney

Shadow hunting with James Tylor

Marikit Santiago’s divine interventions

Imants Tillers gets metaphysical

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