Bathurst Regional Art Gallery Current Exhibitions

Bathurst Regional Art Gallery (BRAG) in partnership with 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, presents A Tear in the Fabric.

The idea of distortion represents a radical shift in aesthetic treatment and conceptual methodology which picks apart established rules which serve to dictate the status quo. For centuries, artists have twisted and transgressed formal boundaries to enact and depict cultural shifts.

A Tear in the Fabric presents new and existing works from nine Asian and Asian Australian artists who embrace distortion as a mode of disruption. It revolves around notions of aesthetic, material and conceptual interventions integrated into established forms of creative practice. Picking at the seams to make space for new narratives and artistic approaches, we see exploratory excursions into concepts of place, materiality, memory, identity and perception, manifesting in a diverse range of mediums.

Artists: Zico Albaiquni, Tiyan Baker, Allison Chhorn, Visaya Hoffie, Jenna Mayilema Lee, Khaled Sabsabi, Leyla Stevens, Ali Tahayori, Hirofumi Uchino.

Bathurst Regional Art Gallery (BRAG) presents Tea Ceremony in the Celestial Garden by Jayanto Tan.

Colourfully crafted confections tantalise the viewer from inside glass cabinets in Tea Ceremony in the Celestial Garden. Reminiscent of the famous Japanese food display ‘shokuhin sampuru’ or French pastries display in Paris, the cakes are mouth-watering, but not for consumption. The construction of the cakes in ceramics is labour-intensive, down to each sprinkle of hundreds and thousands. Their imaginary forms conjure a colourful, dream-like world. This project was created during a 2025 artist residency at the PumpHouse Albury.

Growing up in a large farming family in Indonesia, the artist has many memories of gatherings in the kitchen, cooking, sharing stories, laughing, singing, and drinking tea. Cake was a luxury even for formal occasions like birthday parties, baby showers, weddings, and funerals. Tan reflects on those bittersweet memories. Even though the family may not have been able to afford cakes like these, they are offered here with humour and love.

The mystery of cake, fake or real, lies under the heavy icing and elaborate decoration. The cakes are pretty to look at but carry weight underneath. Each glass cabinet is securely locked, and the objects can’t be touched. For the artist, looking through the glass exposes the fragility of raw human material covered in makeup, like late-night performers.

The garden that the artist has created, to honour family and friends who have deceased, explores Tan’s personal narrative of identity, longing, queerness, lost family, memorial, and self-destruction, here portrayed through alienation, fantasy, and desire in a peaceful dreamland. Tea Ceremony in the Celestial Garden is a space where friends and family from the past, and Gallery visitors in the present, can mingle to envision the future.

This exhibition is dedicated to my beautiful mother. – Jayanto Tan

Bathurst Regional Art Gallery (BRAG) presents The 2025 Galah Regional Photography Prize on the OUT THERE Forecourt Projector, visible after dark in the Gallery/Library Forecourt.

The 2025 Galah Regional Photography Prize exhibition is a collection of 42 outstanding images made by 37 regional photographers from across Australia – from the Pilbara in WA, Armidale NSW, and as far south as Willalooka in SA.

Galah is an independent print magazine documenting regional Australia and the people who live here. It hosts a photography prize every two years and this year’s finalists were selected from over 1,100 entries. The resulting exhibition showcases the diversity, complexity, and beauty of regional Australia.

“We created this prize to celebrate the incredible talent that exists beyond metropolitan art hubs,” says Galah Press’s founder, Annabelle Hickson. “And here it is, in all its glory.”

The exhibition was first presented in May 2025 in collaboration with, and at Armidale’s New England Regional Art Museum. The winner of this year’s $25,000 prize was Lisa Sorgini with The Flood and the $2,000 People’s Choice award went to Sweetheart, Merriwa, an image by Maitland photographer Thérèse Maher of her daughter Eugenie giving a final farewell to a beloved horse.

View the exhibition catalogue here.

Featured Artists: Tim Baker, Robyn Barron, Paul Blackmore, M Ellen Burns, Sarah Cunningham, Anna Doyle, Elise Derwin, Nathan Dyer, Paul Foley, Danielle Fitzgerald, Christian Fletcher, Alex Frayne, Terrence Gillespie, Penelope Green, Natalie Grono, Margot Hughes, Em Jensen, Pia Johnson, Julian Kingma, Tracy Lees, Tess Lehman, Thérèse Maher, Robyn MacRae, Ellie Marinakis, Naomi McKenzie, Trent Mitchell, Rachel Mounsey, Tajette O’Halloran, Dean Sewell, Amelia Scholtz, Lisa Sorgini, Angela Stirling, Katrina Starmer, Mike Terry, Stephane Thomas, Rosa Spring Voss, Karen Webb.

Image: 2025 Galah Regional Photography Prize Winner, Lisa Sorgini, The Flood, 2022, photograph printed on Canson Platine Fibre Rag 310gsm. Courtesy the artist and Galah.

Public Programs

Talks and Tea, Wednesday 8 October, 10:30am – RSVP essential

Exhibition Tours, Saturdays, 11am – RSVP

Sunday Sketch Sessions, Sundays, 10am-2pm – RSVP

Maker Space, daily during opening hours

I Spy Kids Trail, daily during opening hours