Onespace returns to Sydney Contemporary this year, showcasing two of Australia’s leading First Nations printmakers, Teho Ropeyarn and Brian Robinson in Paper Contemporary at booth WP06.
Renowned for pushing the boundaries and scale of printmaking, Ropeyarn and Robinson individually explore Country and landscape as sites of transformation, memory and imagination. Transversing the space between the physical and the subconscious, their works explore the contrasting realms of earth and cosmos and the ancestral knowledge that connects them. Their stunning, large hand-coloured prints embody spiritual metaphors and unfold with memory and cultural knowledge. They both weave mandalas of Country and ancestral pathways.
Teho Ropeyarn’s bold, organic designs return our gaze back to Earth, tracing cultural memory and the passage of time across the landscape through changing seasons. First presented at Onespace in late 2025, in the exhibition Middle World: Every change a continuation, every season a story, this body of work speaks to the ways First Nations peoples engage with Country. Deeply rooted in themes of cultural memory and connection to place, these works draw on Ropeyarn’s childhood memories and portray the landscape as a living network of relationships between people place and seasons.
Following its inclusion in the 2026 NATSIAA Exhibition, Onespace also presents Ropeyarn’s powerful new work, a memorial without end… (State II) A wreath that reflects the enduring weight of loss experienced by First Nations communities, the work honours the lives lost to preventable and systemic causes. Ropeyarn describes it as inhabiting the space between two worlds, “where memory grows and the living learn to carry what remains.” Ropeyarn’s latest prints mark an exciting development in his artistic practice, employing sophisticated tonal variations with gradient effects that bring new depth and movement to the printed surface.
Following presentations at this year’s Cairns Indigenous Art Fair and at Onespace Gallery, Robinson’s Abundance of Country will now travel to Sydney alongside the Stargate series, continuing its journey to audiences across the country. Emulating Queensland’s natural flora across the Seven Watersheds, Abundance of Country is derived from Robinson’s recently unveiled public artwork, Floriate, situated outside the new Glasshouse Theatre in Brisbane. The four-metre-high bronze sculpture adopts a curvilinear form that gestures toward the key river systems connecting to South Brisbane, spanning the South East, Wallum, Central, Wet Tropics, Murray–Darling, Lake Eyre and Bulloo, and Western Cape and Gulf regions. Interwoven with flowering plants that flourish across these regions, the work reflects the ecological and cultural interconnectivity of Country. Robinson has intricately carved native flora that has sustained First Nations peoples for tens of thousands of years, embedding within the surface his recognisable patterning of ancestral mythologies, customs, and the marine ecosystems of the Torres Strait. Continuing this exploration of realms, Stargate 1-3 positions these cosmologies as portals to ancestral time. An invitation for viewers to stand at the threshold where the sky meets the sea and vast systems of collective memory transmit through visual iconographies of stars, currents and spirit beings.
Register your interest for Sydney Contemporary here to receive a preview catalogue and for more information about the works. We look forward to welcoming you to Sydney Contemporary, at Carriageworks, from 3 – 6 September.
Thumbnail: Teho Ropeyarn. Photo: Garuwa. Courtesy of the artist and Onespace; Brian Robinson. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist and the Art Gallery of South Australia
Teho Ropeyarn, Starry Night in Cape York, 2025, vinyl-cut print, 100cm x 160cm (block), 117 x 177cm (paper), 2AP + Edition of 10. Photo: Louis Lim. Courtesy of the artist and Onespace.
Brian Robinson, Abundance of Country: Spotted Emu, 2026, 60 x 98cm, vinyl-cut print on paper, 2AP + Edition of 15. Image: Michael Marzik. Courtesy of the artist and Onespace.
