Huge congratulations to Mitch Cairns announced by Mosman Art Gallery and The Balnaves Foundation last night as the inaugural recipient of The Neil Balnaves Fellowship. "Valued at $80,000 and in honour of the late Neil Balnaves AO, this is a major initiative to support the development of a significant piece of research or creative endeavour over a two-year period.”

Three recently acquired paintings by Mitch Cairns will feature in Framing Tomorrow, an exhibition commemorating 50 years of Murdoch University’s Art Collection. Exhibition: November 2025-August 2026

A review of Mitch Cairns' solo exhibition, Restless Legs, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales earlier this year, has been published in Artforum. "Does anyone paint a better line than Mitch Cairns? The forty-one-year-old Australian artist is known for his reliably rigorous treatment of painting’s essentials, taking color and form as subject matter." Wes Hill

Mitch Cairns' solo exhibition, Restless Legs, commissioned by the Art Gallery of New South Wales and curated by Nick Yelverton, opens this week at its second venue in an expanded form at Wollongong Art Gallery. The exhibition will be launched by Maud Page, Director AGNSW, at opening event Friday 05.09.25, 6-8pm. Exhibition continues until 30.11.25

Mitch Cairns is a finalist in the 2025 Mosman Art Prize with his painting Opera House. The exhibition of finalists opens at Mosman Art Gallery Friday 22.08.25 with announcement of winner selected by guest judge, Justin Paton, Head Curator of International Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Exhibition: 22.08.25 — 02.11.25

Memo Review has published a review of Mitch Cairns’ exhibition Restless Legs at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, written by Emma O’Neill. The exhibition, which ran from 8 March to 12 May 2025, featured a series of oil paintings and text-based bronze plates that explore themes of language, memory, and the interplay between text and image. Mitch Cairns: Restless Legs will be presented at Wollongong Art Gallery in an expanded form opening September this year. Read review.

"The Art Gallery of New South Wales has made the decision to close Mitch Cairns’ exhibition, Restless Legs, earlier than planned due to unfortunate, unforeseen circumstances. The Art Gallery apologises to the artist and anyone who did not have the opportunity to visit the solo exhibition, which was part of the Art Gallery’s Contemporary Projects series, before its early closure. If you can, we encourage you to visit the exhibition when it tours to Wollongong Art Gallery, where it will be on display from 6 September to 30 November 2025." Statement from AGNSW. View Mitch Cairns: Restless Legs online

Congratulations to Angela Brennan, Mitch Cairns and Jude Rae, announced as finalists in the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Angela is in Archibald with a portrait of Bridget Brennan, award-winning Indigenous journalist and the artist's niece. Mitch is in the Archibald with a portrait of fellow artist, Stephen Ralph, an in the Sulman with a mixed media text piece. Jude is in the Wynne with her painting, Pre-dawn sky over Port Botany container terminal. Exhibitions open Friday 09.05.25

Angela Brennan and Mitch Cairns feature in Eye to Eye: The Susan Taylor and Peter Jones Collection at Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra. This significant private collection "was seeded from an initial interest in mid-century modern design and early twentieth century avant-gardes, blossoming into an embrace of non-objective and abstract art. Yet their collection has grown to revel in the intersections between conceptual art, geometric abstraction, seriality, non-objective painting, photography, contemporary jewellery and poetics to develop conjunctions across time, place and materiality." Opening event: 01.05.25, 6pm. Exhibition: 19.04.25 — 15.06.25.

Coverage by Steve Dow in Art Guide on Mitch Cairns: Restless Legs at Art Gallery of New South Wales. "Of late, Cairns has dubbed his works “perfume paintings”, in the sense of “something entering the air, a sensory acknowledgement”."

Coverage in today's Sydney Morning Herald of Mitch Cairns' solo exhibition, Restless Legs, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, by Michaela Boland.

Mitch Cairns will be in conversation at the Art Gallery of New South Wales with curator Nick Yelverton on the occasion of his solo exhibition, Restless Legs. Wednesday 12.03.24, 6.30pm. Further details on AGNSW website.

Mitch Cairns’ Adelaide Painting from his solo presentation by The Commercial at Sydney Contemporary in 2024 has been acquired by Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.

The Art Gallery of New South Wales is presenting a solo show by Mitch Cairns in 2025. Restless Legs will be Mitch Cairns’ first solo exhibition at the AGNSW. His paintings ‘take inspiration from the world outside his inner-city studio, from nature and the built environment to the working lives of the people around him. […] Questions of class, labour, communication and regionalism appear elsewhere in the exhibition along with tributes to literary influences.' exhibition: 08.03.25 — 09.06.25

Mitch Cairns’ Ballpoint from his recent solo presentation by The Commercial at Sydney Contemporary has been acquired by The Wesfarmers Collection, Perth.