Art exhibitions to see in Sydney this week

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards and exhibition showcase not only the best of the natural world, but the patience, ingenuity and talent of the photographers who spend their time embedded within wildlife so that they can get that incredible, revealing shot. Judged by a panel of industry-recognised professionals, this year's 100 finalists were taken by some of the world’s best nature photographers and selected for their creativity, artistry and technical complexity.

It’s not called the golden hour for nothing – as the sun rises in the wee hours, giving everything a rosy hue, photographers take advantage of the perfect natural light. If you want to learn how the pros capture glowing city scenes at this winning morning hour, book in for the Cityscapes Masterclass at Sydney Tower. You’ll need a basic understanding of digital SLR cameras (and you’ll have to bring yours along) on this two hour high-rise photography adventure. Your Nikon School lecturer will lead the small group on a private skywalk for the first half of the tour, then you can spend another hour on the Sydney Tower Eye Observation Deck. Along the way you’ll be guided in creative composition, lens configuration and advanced exposure techniques to build your photography skills. And you won’t have to skip breakfast – there’s a spread of pastries, fruit and drinks included in the course.

Bark painting is among the most recognisable Aboriginal art, but you mightn’t know that it was only popularised in the 1930s. Until then, the familiar imagery was used as body paint and in caves. Occasionally the patterns were painted onto bark as a record of the designs, but it’s only relatively recently that the bark has been considered its own canvas. One of the greatest exponents of bark painting – and one of the greatest exponents of Aboriginal art in general – is John Mawurndjul, who rose to international fame in the late 1980s and ‘90s. The Kuninjku artist, based in Arnhem Land, is getting a major career retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, made up of 165 works. They’ll take over the third level of the MCA this winter, the same space where English artist and provocateur Grayson Perry presented a blockbuster show in 2015. At the time, Perry sparked debate when he controversially said Aboriginal art should not be considered contemporary art. Clothilde Bullen, one of the curators behind Mawurndjul’s exhibition and a Wardandi (Nyoongar) Aboriginal woman, strongly disagrees. “I think all Aboriginal art being made here and now is contemporary, and I’d absolutely stand by that,” she says. “But it’s OK that [Perry] is given the opportunity to say those things at the MCA, and we have this kind of rebuttal.” Not only is Mawurndjul one of the major pioneers of the bark medium, he has evolved and pushed traditional practices, like rarrk, which refers to a close an

The Archibald Prize is the exhibition that stops a nation – well, a city anyway. Everyone has an opinion about who and what is most deserving of the $100,000 top gong – and the annual exhibition of finalists (this year there's a whopper 57 paintings) offers plenty to argue over, featuring faces familiar and not, by big name, mid-career and emerging painters. The top gong for 2018 has gone to Yvette Coppersmith for her self-portrait, emulating the power of New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, who was unavailable to pose. She beat out painters like Jamie Preisz, who won the Packing Room Prize for his portrait of Jimmy Barnes, and Vincent Namatjira, whose studio self-portrait was highly commended by the judges. The line-up for this year also includes Archibald veterans like Robert Hannaford and Del Kathryn Barton. If you prefer your painters pint-sized, then you should make a pit stop at the Young Archie exhibition, featuring portraits by artists between the ages of 5 and 18.  Running concurrently in the gallery are the Wynne and Sulman Prize exhibitions – the former for landscape painting or figurative sculpture, the latter for subject painting, genre painting or mural art. Check out our hit list of the best art exhibitions to see in Sydney this month.

Cement Fondu is one of Sydney's newest galleries, having only opened in March this year. Its next exhibition looks at the relationship between personal narratives and migrant communities and features video and installation works from five artists. A video and installation from James Nguyen, performed with his Aunty, shows "the purifying gesture of adding charcoal into a section of the Parramatta River." Khaled Sabsabi’s video installation, 'Ali or عli' "explores sunrise and sunset as both a poetic and literal metaphor for divergent east-west perspectives, unified under a single sun and through a shared, fundamental spirituality." Mona Ibrahim's new video work "relays an intimate conversation with her grandfather that reflects on her personal experience emigrating from Cairo to Sydney in 2012." Phaptawan Suwannakudt’s installation is inspired by her memories of Bangkok’s Wat Pho. And Shivanjani Lal’s video installation 'Khet' "documents the artist offering a traditional gesture of Pranama 'respectful salutation or bowing' to her ancestral mother country of India - the khet or landscape from which she is now displaced." The exhibition is showing alongside the Refugee Art Project.

At the centre of Laka, an artistic collaboration between S. Shakthidharan and Rosalee Pearson, is a feature-length film telling the story of Lily, a Yolngu woman from the Northern Territory, and her husband Siddhartha, a Sri Lankan Australian. The pair are preparing for the birth of their first child when they reach a crossroad and Lily has to make a decision between her family and country. But the film is part of a bigger exhibition that draws in sound and video installation as well as a virtual reality film that finds commonalities between the social structures and spirituality in Yolngu and Hindu culture. Those commonalities might seem surprising, but scientists have discovered DNA matches between First Nations Australians and South Asians from 4,000 years ago, suggesting a system of travel may have existed between the two regions.

Some artists might try to look past the rust, grime and dilapidation of the urban environments they're capturing. Not Joshua Smith. In his first solo exhibition, he takes cities at their most honest – falling apart, covered in unfashionable graffiti – and creates aesthetically intriguing miniature models of buildings and shopfronts, complete with overflowing dumpsters and colourful signage. The streetscapes on show at the Australian Design Centre include some recognisable Sydney structures that aren’t the focal point for most postcards or ad campaigns. There’s a mouse-sized version of the now closed Olympia Milk Bar in Stanmore, the bright blue Karim building that’s wedged in a sliver of Wentworth Street, and the mad window display of the ginseng shop in Haymarket. You’ll also encounter another milk bar, this time from Joshua's home town Adelaide and a Bodega from Brooklyn, New York. These intricate creations recognise the identity of cities through their architecture, but also probe questions about urban design and how decay and history might be woven into future development. To explore these concepts further, head to the discussion night on August 22 for insights from urban designers, architects and city planners.

Australian artist John Russell was a close friend of Van Gogh and Rodin, dined with Monet and was credited by Matisse for teaching him the basics of colour theory. Yet despite his talent and illustrious connections, few Australians have heard of him, let alone seen any of his work. This survey of his work is the first in 40 years, and brings together around a hundred of his painting and drawings. Spanning the length and breadth of Russell’s career, from his early studies in Paris and London to his experiments with impressionism and pure colour, many of the works have only been recently rediscovered and are on public display for the first time. Twelve of his paintings are coming to Sydney from their home at Musée d’Orsay, and have never been seen in Australia before. There are also works on loan from the Van Gogh Museum and Musée Rodin, alongside private collections from Australian Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. The back room of the exhibition is packed with dramatic works painted by Russell at Belle-Île, a French island off the coast of Brittany where he lived for 20 years. He painted a series of works showing the rough seas around Belle-Île, and these are shown alongside paintings of the same scenery by Matisse, who was learning from Russell at the time. There are also a series of works showing Rose Bay in the 1920s, where Russell lived in the years before his death. Appropriately, the exhibition includes a selection of work from his European contemporaries: Rodin, Van

Frank Hurley lived an extraordinary life in just about every way imaginable. Born in Sydney, he became the official photographer for multiple expeditions to Antarctica, led by Douglas Mawson and Ernest Shackleton, including one in which the party became stranded for two full years, from 1914 to 1916. Just a year later, in 1917, Hurley joined the Australian Defence Force and became a war photographer for both world wars. His photos are among the most enduring images of the wars. But this exhibition at Manly Art Gallery and Museum celebrates Hurley's more domestic side and features mostly images taken while in Sydney at the very beginning of the 20th century and then in the 1950s. Many of the photos haven't been exhibited before and reveal a side of Sydney that most of us wouldn't know: there's Martin Place while you could still drive straight down the centre and a gorgeous photo of Circular Quay in 1960. The exhibition is part of the 9th annual Head On Photo Festival.

Plenty of Sydney art lovers would've discovered the work of Sun Xun this year at White Rabbit's latest exhibition, which features a full floor of work by the Chinese artist, called 'The Republic of Jing Bang'. That work featured a hell of a lot of paintings and drawings splashed across the gallery's walls, but for those wanting to get even better acquainted with the artist's output, the Museum of Contemporary Art is presenting his first solo Australian exhibition. Visitors can see several of his animations, meticulously created with thousands of handmade woodcuts, ink paintings and drawings. He's also making a brand new work for the exhibition: a 40-metre long painting on bark paper and woodcuts. The artist's work is boldly graphic and at once political and personal. Through many of his pieces, he explores the disparity between official histories and personal recollection.