Melbourne art fair highlights 22 standout artists
Melbourne’s Affordable Art Fair will return to the Royal Exhibition Building from August 27 to 30, 2026, offering thousands of original works priced for collectors and first-time buyers.
Galleries and artists to watch
Seventy galleries from Australia and overseas will fill the historic venue, each bringing a curated selection of emerging and established names. In-land Gallery represents artists whose work reflects a strong bond with Australia’s environment.
Christine Goerner, a Melbourne-based photographer, creates images that hover between memory and reality. Her pieces translate nature’s shifting textures and moody palettes into evocative dreamscapes.
Ben Liney, another artist at the gallery, works in oil on canvas. He uses a restrained color palette and detailed brushwork to capture the quiet persistence of the natural world. His paintings encourage viewers to slow down and observe more closely.
Brunswick Street Gallery, a fixture in Melbourne’s art scene since 2005, will showcase local talents. Jessie Rose Ford, a contemporary oil painter and botanical artist, distills moments of awe in nature through bold gestures and gold accents. Ruby Bovill, another artist at the gallery, draws inspiration from her childhood in Melbourne and frequent visits to the Great Ocean Road and Murray River. Her works invite quiet reflection on place and memory.
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Jules Bulleid, a Western Australian painter, blends her farming background with travels through remote areas to create scenes that sometimes feel otherworldly. Her work will be part of the fair’s Discover: Young Talent platform, which highlights the next generation of Australian artists.
Anna Walsh, based in Moama, NSW, creates detailed, hand-rendered designs inspired by Australia’s flora. Her background in textile design influences her approach. Melbourne artist Ariella Weinmann takes a different path, using still life to capture everyday beauty. Her oil paintings arrange familiar objects in compositions that evoke stillness and balance.
Materiality and cultural perspectives
Good Work Gallery, based in Sydney, emphasizes how materials can tell stories. The artists challenge traditional genres, inviting viewers to engage with art on a tactile level. Claire Mooney explores geometric patterns and color through paint and textiles. She often starts with collage before translating those fragments into layered brushstrokes or threads.
Oddball Gallery, an artist-led initiative, focuses on contemporary female and gender-diverse creators. Sydney ceramicist Laura Braich of Mennt transforms clay into dynamic tiled canvases. Her work draws inspiration from the movement and textures of nature. Light, glazes, and oxides create surfaces that shift with the viewer’s perspective.
Loam Gallery, named for fertile soil, brings together artists whose practices are rooted in lived experience.
The fair will also include works from Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, a 100% Aboriginal-owned art center in Yuendumu, Northern Territory. Founded in 1985, the center preserves and shares Warlpiri culture through art. Pieces by Alicka Napanangka Brown and Gisella Napaljarri Dickson will be on display.
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Solenne Studio explores the emotional ties between setting, memory, and perception. Tracy Strange, one of its artists, paints scenes from her childhood in Victoria’s western district and her current home in Mosquito Point, a remote area accessible only by boat. Her dreamy works often evoke cold, misty mornings, created through rapid, instinctive techniques.
The Victorian Artists Society, founded in 1870, will also participate. TJ Murphy, a realist artist and tutor, centers his work on observation. He challenges the idea that visual perception should mimic photography. Gregory R Smith, a past president of the society, approaches each painting as a lesson. His goal is to deepen his understanding of how we see.
Coastal influences and horizon lines
Salt Contemporary, housed in a historic Queenscliff drapery store, will bring a mix of painters, printmakers, and sculptors. Jill Noble creates setting compositions that play with shape, form, and negative space. Kay Gibson, another artist at the gallery, merges bushwalking and sketching with her practice. She often combines materials like paper embossed with endemic plants or traditional etching techniques.
Natalie Anderson focuses on the horizon line in her representational oil paintings. Her work shifts between the raw power of the ocean—waves, tides, and sunlight on water—and inland scenes of rolling plains and open skies.
The fair runs Thursday through Sunday. Tickets are available online, and all works will be ready for purchase and immediate collection. For those interested in reviving mid-century aesthetics, similar attention to detail can be found in recent renovations of older spaces.
