Online and in Canberra this week ‘Difficult Conversations’ explores the role of art and creativity in a polarised society.

Art Month Sydney is on view now across the city, celebrating the significance and vibrancy of Sydney’s art scene until 27 March.

Curated by Anna May Kirk and Tai Mitsuji the showcase asks us to consider ‘what does it mean to do slowness?’

Australian writer Tim Winton called on the gate-keepers of arts funding Australia-wide to not accept support from the fossil fuel industry.

From 24 to 27 March ‘The Melbourne Fair’ will present all kinds of wonderful Antique, Art Deco, Vintage and 20th Century pieces that have stood the test of time.

The Art Gallery of South Australia presents the 31st ‘Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Free/State’ from 4 March to 5 June.

Michelle Hamer asks the audience to be present when, weirdly, time is abstracted and yet the world seems to move at break-neck pace.

Salvatore Zofrea is a celebrated painter and printmaker and this show celebrating his drawing traces the artist’s personal journey from Italy to the Australian landscape.

The Melbourne Art Fair (MAF) is on view across the weekend from 17 to 20 February at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre with solo presentations as well as exhibits from 53 of the region’s leading galleries.

On the weekend of 4 to 6 March Surface Festival takes to the streets of the nation’s capital with presentations of urban art.

Interdisciplinary artist Vic McEwan explores “the active role that the arts sector can play in reimagining a better world.”

Jacqueline Bradley’s exhibition ‘the tender’ is a poetic and visceral presentation that can be understood as a contemporary ‘still life’.

Culture Vault launches new NFT platform, and the exhibition ‘The Future is Phygital’ at Sydney’s Verona Studio, in March.

‘The Other Side of the Mountain’ by Karlee Rawkins is a new body of work about overcoming obstacles.

Check out the outstanding exhibitions and public programming to see out your summer at the country’s leading institutions. Enjoy!

Exclusive to Canberra, the exhibition Australians & Hollywood is on view until 17 July 2022.

‘Visions of India: from the colonial to the contemporary’ is a major survey exhibition of photographic works, exploring India’s relationship with photography from the 1860s to now, at Monash Gallery of Art until 20 March.

Climarte is a new art gallery in Melbourne that presents as the world’s first Climate Emergency focussed art gallery.

‘A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing’ offers another perspective to what it could be like as a young single Asian woman in Australia who defies expectation and carves her own path.

Twenty-one artists explore the possibilities of exchange and communication between humans and the natural world in ‘Birds & Language’ at Wollongong Art Gallery until 13 February 2022.