“. . . a stress test for all.”
The 2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art’s Yield Strength explores twenty-four Australian artists who push the boundaries of materiality, medium, and sense of self. Curated by Ellie Buttrose, she found artists working in the here and now, while threads of deep time emerged, prompting the curator to reflect on a uniquely Australian art context spanning 65,000 years. The title became a response, Yield Strength. “It’s a term that’s about the limit of how far artists can push a material and that you can continually test that limit . . . how under pressure things change, and they change irreversibly,” says Buttrose.
Robert Andrew, Yawuru people, Western Australia, born Perth 1965, new eyes—old Country, 2025, charcoal, electromechanical devices, aluminium components, single channel video, dimensions variable
Photograph: Carl Warner
Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Queensland
Taking place across three locations, the Art Gallery of South Australia, Samstag Museum of Art, and Adelaide Botanic Garden, during the Adelaide Festival, the sixty-six artworks of Yield Strength are positioned to generate dialogue with one another. And, as in life, the political and social underpinnings expose nuances. At AGSA, Robert Andrew’s second installation uses drone footage of his grandma’s Yawuru Country to explore deep time with fast-paced technology. Simultaneously, the screen moves across the wall, dragging a piece of charcoal that leaves traces across the wall. While in Julie Nangala Robertson’s work, she pulls the intense Warlpiri dot motif apart to create a dialogue with Country. “Julie is showing you the build up of the painting of the landscape, and Robert’s slowly drawing the landscape over the course of the exhibition,” says Buttrose.
Kirtika Kain, The illusion of your history, 2023, gold, gold leaf, wax, cotton wicks, human hair, wire, plastic, cow dung, chunni fabric, cotton, Rangoli pigment, Holi pigment, plasticine, coconut broom grass, acrylic paint, grains, copper leaf, coir rope, leather, wire, card- board, plaster, impasto, black lotus seeds, sindoor, turmeric, tar, 300 × 1,000cm
Photograph: Hamish McIntosh
Courtesy the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
Showing at AGSA and Samstag, Kirtika Kain’s artwork, composed of tar, turmeric, and gold, reflects on the loaded materials from her Indian heritage through juxtaposition, the weight of tar versus the delicate gold leaf. “Kain’s is responsive to the social conditions of the Dalit, with whom she shares a cultural connection. She’s speaking to this history of labour related to mining gold and tar, and turns these materials into these amazing abstract compositions,” says Buttrose. Likewise, Matthew Harris – also showing at AGSA and Samstag – uses ochres, but in a non-customary reframing, as he considers Australia in 65,000 years.
Mark Maurangi Carrol, born New South Wales 1995, Psalm (part 3), 2024, oil enamel, permanent marker on linen, 153 × 122cm
Photograph: Volodymyr Kravchenko
© Nasha Gallery and Mark Maurangi Carrol
Courtesy the artist and Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art
Materiality is tested in Yield Strength, as is medium. Showing at AGSA, Mark Maurangi Carrol paints on the underside of his canvas to allow a blurred sense of pattern and colour to emerge, echoing the Cook Island process to create pāreu. Or Prudence Flint’s silent yet psychologically charged paintings – showing at AGSA and Samstag – that offer a quiet counterpoint to the capitalist musings on objects, such as Erica Scott’s use of quickly decaying plastic for her B-grade horror movie aesthetic installation in the Adelaide Botanic Garden.
Throughout the three venues, twenty-four artists, and sixty-six artworks, Yield Strength provides a vast window into Australian art. The colonial ramifications, and the political impacts it leaves behind, creating a stress test for all. Yield Strength reveals constraint, force, strain, and tension through engaging artworks that invite long pauses, moments to stop and consider, and remember. Art that doesn’t let you forget while also delving into the novel processes and techniques of multiple mediums.
Prudence Flint, born Melbourne 1962, The Cut, 2023, oil on linen, 124 × 104cm
Courtesy the artist and Fine Arts, Sydney
Artists: Robert Andrew, Nathan Beard, Lauren Burrow, Francis Carmody, Mark Maurangi Carrol, Milminyina Dhamarrandji, Matthew Teapot Djipurrtjun, George Egerton-Warburton, Prudence Flint, Brian Fuata, d harding, Matthew Harris, Helen Johnson, Kirtika Kain, Jennifer Mathews, Archie Moore, Josina Pumani, Julie Nangala Robertson, Erika Scott, Joel Sherwood Spring, Charlie Sofo, John Spiteri, Isadora Vaughan, and Emmaline Zanelli.
Emma-Kate Wilson is an art and design writer and editor based on Gumbaynggirr Country (Bellingen, New South Wales).
Art Gallery of South Australia
Samstag Museum of Art
Adelaide Botanic Garden
27 February to 8 June 2026
South Australia
Originally published in print – Art Almanac, March 2026 issue, pp. 18–21
