Previous Exhibitions
Cairns Pride Festival - Art Exhibition
Free
Cairns Pride Festival brings to light the incredible talent of folk from diverse backgrounds in tropical Far North Queensland.
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Tropical Steampunk Upcycled - By Create More
Free
During June to August, the Cairns public were invited to come and create artworks using reclaimed materials as part of the 2020 Tropical Steampunk Upcycled workshops.
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Neville Cichon - Residency
Free
Neville Cichon is an Adelaide based visual artist developing new work on the human impact on marine environments.
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Energy 2020
Free
ENERGY is a presentation of visual art produced by school students across the region.
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Undercurrents - Cook 2020
Free
Undercurrents addresses the imbalance of (written) colonial history versus First Peoples’ (oral) history.
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Flame 2020 | International Women's Day Exhibition
Free
FLAME is the exhibition outcome of a mentorship program to give young women experience in the professional arts industry.
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Luisa Manea - Sea of Faces
Free
Luisa Manea’s portraits, for a long time, have focused largely on fashion.
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Kahli Henderson-Powell - Flightless Birds
Free
While the world we live in today can be viewed as beautiful, and at times breath-taking, in reality, the world is also cruel and merciless.
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Alissa Tyrrell - Different Encounters
Free
During Alissa Tyrrell’s last years of high school, she spent most of her break time in the art room of Trinity Bay State School, exploring the techniques she’d learned in...
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Trent Griffin - Colours of My World
Free
Colours of My World is an abundance of colour and brush strokes on canvas, capturing Trent’s imagination and observations of real life, transformed into cartoon and pop i...
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Kerry Lowe - Oceanlife
Free
Kerry Lowe’s first solo exhibition, Oceanlife features a kaleidoscope of tropical fish in a vibrant blue ocean, swimming through life like we all do. And just like us, al...
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Elverina Johnson - Fisher Woman Dreaming
Free
Fisher Woman Dreaming is a pictorial memoir by Elverina Johnson, and a tribute to her grandmother, Hilda Murgha (ne Fourmile).
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Ten - Crate 59 Ten Year Anniversary
Free
Please come and celebrate one of Cairns' longest running contemporary arts groups for a night of art and music.
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Jing Jin - Zoomed In
Free
Jing Jin is a China-born, US-raised painter, ceramic sculptor, and digital designer currently visiting Australia
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A Living Art - Cairns Bonsai Society
Free
The 2019 Cairns Bonsai Society Exhibition and 30th Birthday, is a free community event welcoming all to experience the wonder and awe of this ancient living art – Bonsai.
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Pride Art 2019
By donation
Celebrate Cairns and Far North Queensland’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Sistergirl and Brotherboy communities and an eclectic range of self-expression ...
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Energy 2019
Free
ENERGY is a presentation of visual art produced by school students across the region.
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Carme Dapena - Cairns Butterflies, Stages of Life
Free
Carme Dapena Gonzàlez is a painter, calligrapher, engraver, and educator, based in Spain.
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Our Journeys - Homeless to Housing Exhibition
Free
This exhibition displays the work of artists with a lived experience of homelessness, depicting their stories and their journeys to housing.
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Reasonable & Necessary - Prints and Artist Books by Artel Artists
Free
Artel, CPL’s creative industries studio, supports the development of a positive and participatory cultural identity for people with profound and complex disabilities
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Joanne Sisson and Helen Braun - Preserve
Free
Given the current era of environmental change, how do we interpret the natural living world of flora and fauna differently?
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Thancoupie Tribute - A Legacy of Cultural Power
Free
Thancoupie Gloria Fletcher AO (1937-2011) was an exceptional pioneering artist, linguist, teacher and cultural leader from Napranum in Far North Queensland.
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Pete Marshall, BVSC, SAA, AFC, AGRA - Birds of Cattana
Free
Internationally recognized artist, Pete Marshall specialises in bird art and has travelled to remote and wild places around the world, researching material for her work.
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Shaz Spannenburg - Sky Flowers
Free
Some people chase storms, others chase eclipses. Cairns based photographer, Shaz Spannenburg chases fireworks.
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Cop's Day Off
Free
See the diversity of passion and pursuits of over 60 Police Officers, from collecting honey to running a zoo, from doing yoga to running a marathon, from riding motor bik...
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Undersea Garden - Re-imagined Recycled Reef Exhibition
Free
It’s a re-imaged reef made from recycled materials – all on dry land!
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Artists of the North - Cairns Art Society
Free
Gathering its members and other artists from North Queensland, in one of the largest group exhibitions in the Cairns cultural calendar, Cairns Art Society presents their ...
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Flame.Visual - International Women's Day Exhibition
FLAME is the exhibition outcome of a mentorship program to give young women experience in the professional arts industry.
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Robert and Tao Delves + One
Father-daughter duo, Robert and Tao Delves undertake a six-week residency at the Tanks, practicing and teaching techniques in drawing and painting onto slip cast ceramics...
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Charlie Drew - Different Minds and Other Creatures
Free
Inspired by monsters, mythological beasts and extinct species, Charlie Drew reimagines and hybridises to create new creature forms.
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Cairns Artistic Photography - Social Shoot Soiree Series
Free
The series is a unique and artsy skills exchange, merging themes from native Australian and Islander regions with Asian and European provinces.
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Mitchell Burns - A Panaromic Vision
Free
In A Panoramic Vision, Mitchell Burns shares the rewards of his patience, his years of learning and his many expeditions to striking locations around Australia.
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Alex Hiatt - Relationships On Paper
Free
Alex Hiatt is an emerging artist with an astonishingly prolific output of work for one so young.
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The Age of Enjoyment - Oak Tree Art Group
Free
Is The Age of Enjoyment an era in which we live, or an age in years? It can be either, or both.
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Lynette Shaw - Scenes From My Youth
Free
Lynette Shaw’s debut solo exhibition of works on paper and paintings references her familial heritage of generations lived in Cairns and on the Atherton Tablelands.
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Ian Hance - Kitschgrotesque
Free
Kitschgrotesque addresses several questions concerning the concepts of humour as they pertain to the psyche of the population of the tropical north.
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Song and Dance Photographic Exhibition
Free
This exhibition is a Sister Cities collaboration between Cairns and Riga, Latvia, to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of Latvia’s independence.
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Anna & Declan Delargy - From The Sky... Wings Over Abstract Colour Fields
Free
For the first time, two of our much loved local artists, mother and son, Anna and Declan Delargy, show their work together in a duo exhibition.
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Linda Ash - The World is Turning
Free
The World is Turning asks the viewer to reflect on our responsibility to the planet and to consider a spiritual, emotional and physical connection to nature.
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Tropical Gaze 2018 - Cairns Tropical Pride
Free
If a picture is worth a thousand words, this rich and diverse collection, promises a lot of conversation.
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Energy 2018
Free
A presentation of visual art produced by school students across the region.
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Inkmasters Print Exhibition 2018 by Inkmasters Cairns
Free
The fourth biennial InkFest print exhibition features print-based works by regional, national and international artists.
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Pride in Authority - An Exhibition of Cultural Longevity
Free
A major highlight of CIAF’s program of satellite exhibitions stemming from a collaboration between CIAF and three remote Aboriginal communities: Aurukun, Pormpuraaw and B...
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Hayley McCann - Still Process
Free
‘Still Process’ is Hayley McCann’s first solo exhibition, a collection of original works using black ink and coloured pencil on paper, inspired by botanicals observed in ...
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N.Q. Weaving 2018
Free
During the exhibition and workshops the regions weavers and natural fibre crafters will showcase collaborative and interactive pieces with an emphasis on ecological and c...
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Angela Meyer - Grammars of Ornament: Windows in Time
Free
In this body of work Angela Meyer is interested in identity politics, disparity and unity in historical narratives and the tropical world as a place of abundant nature an...
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Artists of the North - Cairns Art Society
Free
Annually the Cairns Art Society gathers together its members and other artists from Far North Queensland and presents the best of their art in one of the largest group ex...
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Mixed Blood - Contemporary Indigenous Cultural Expression
Free
“Mixed Blood symbolises how the Indigenous people of Cairns today have such a dynamic, rich and varied Indigenous heritage.
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Marushka Kafka - So Much as a Backwards Glance
Free
Marushka Kafka's solo exhibition -
Winner of the Tanks Curator’s Award at the ENERGY 2017 exhibition.
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Jewish Life in Germany Today
Free
This exhibition combines the historical and contemporary aspects of living as a member of the Jewish community in Germany.
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Sarah Jane Botham - Travelling Light
Free
In Travelling Light, SJ Botham explores some of the world’s most iconic travel destinations using sculpture and hand-cut paper works as light stencils to create light dra...
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John Eaton - Locus Pocus
Free
With a fascination for historical drawing techniques, Eaton took a particular interest in Alexander Cozen’s A New Method of Assisting the Invention in Drawing Original Co...
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Brian Cassey - A Photographer's Life - Part One
Free
This exhibition bears witness to a life spent working in the photographic industry.
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Francoise Lane and Christy Van Der Heyden - Fusing Sands
Free
Desert meets Island to explore diversity through design.
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Big Design
Free
Big Design provides a pathway for young people to imagine and create public artworks in celebration of the Commonwealth Games 2018.
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The Power of Pallets Exhibition and Fundraiser
An exhibition of art and furniture, made entirely of up-cycled timber pallets, donated for auction by local individuals, groups, tradesmen, businesses and schools.
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Karen Argus - When will the rain come?
Free
This exhibition has been created in a picture book style and asks us to question our thoughts and ideas about toads.
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Hannah Parker and Claire Freer - After Hinchinbrook: A Year in the Making
Exhibition FREE
In October last year, Claire Freer and Hannah Parker walked for 6 days on Hinchinbrook Island. Hannah took a purse size palette of watercolours and postcard size paper. ...
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Elizabeth Hunter - Memento Mori: Art, Death and the Afterlife
Free
Local printmaker and installation artist Elizabeth Hunter has been working for the last four years, making pieces for a special celebration of The Day of The Dead.
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Tropical Gaze 2017 Art Exhibition
Free
Stimulate your senses with Tropical North Queensland's most exhilarating art.
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Hike 'N' Bike - Wet Tropics Wild Exposure Exhibition
Free
Be immersed in ancient rainforests and discover the beauty of the region.
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Regular Rick, Centacare & Cairns Community - #wearecairns
Free
A celebration of the people of Cairns with a focus on the unique level of diversity within our region.
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Family Values - CIAF Satellite Exhibition
Family Values is an honest and authentic portrayal of contemporary family life, relating to the 2017 Curated Art Fair theme of FAMILY VALUES.
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Ian Smith & Glen O'Malley - Three Foot Six, the Sunlander
This exhibition records Queensland rail heritage and captures the high and low energy and excitement associated with trains and rail travel.
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Jane Dennis - Sushi Train
For her first major solo exhibition at the Tanks, Jane Dennis brings a sumptuous offering of raw fish prints.
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Cultural Collective: Looking Forward, Looking Back - Selected works from the Kenny Bedford Collection, curated by Brian Robinson
Free
For 25 years, Torres Strait Islander, Kenny Bedford has been collecting the art of his people.
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Priscilla Ong - City Faces of 100 years
Priscilla presents a portrait of a city as diverse as it gets.
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Artists of the North 2017 - Cairns Art Society
The theme for the 12th Artists of the North exhibition, “Hot, wet and steamy in the tropics”
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Elizabeth Sutton - Seventeen Years at Home
Elizabeth Sutton Exhibition
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Mimi Tannaka - Unplugged Photographs
Mimi Tannaka - Unplugged Photographs Exhibition
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