From pencil to pixel, Small Frame is an assembly of experimental animated works that foreground technique and material in physical space. Curated by Jenn Tran, the exhibition brings together independent animators Jent Do, Milly Yencken, Quinn Franks, Eleanor Evans, and Tiff Yue — artists working and recognised across Australia and internationally.

Having Swallowed a Mirror meditates on the idea that a portrait of someone else is also a portrait of the artist. This exhibition brings together three early-career artists exploring contemporary portrait painting and suggests that the practice of portrait making is a way of looking inward by looking outward.

Moving in (the next world) builds on Come As You Are, Little Umbrella Collective’s online exhibition, bringing the work into a shared physical environment. The exhibition shifts focus from individual practices to collaboration, imagining the gallery as a space of dwelling. Through painting, textile, sculpture and installation, artists collectively shape a home built through care, access and community.

In the Presence of Self (al-nafs) is grounded in repetition as both a meditative process and a quiet act of resistance, drawing on the spiritual tradition of dhikr (remembrance). The work invites the viewer into a space of tazkiyah (purification and contemplation), where the act of creation becomes ritual, discipline, and inner refinement.

Firstdraft is proud to present our inaugural micro commissioned works.

Drawing from experiences and knowledges across the Great Ocean, fa’alogo ‘o le temporary obstructions is an offering that echoes from Sāmoa, and into the labours of the dispersed.

Water frames displacement and return in Ballast, a work in conversation with Les Kennedy’s unfinished research into the HMAS Sydney II shipwreck and the familial loss it holds.

Message Depth is an installation that examines the hidden infrastructures shaping contemporary life.