Image: John Young Zerunge, Time's Slow Passing #6 from the series Time's Slow Passing, 2023, etching and lithography on rag paper, 44 x 38 cm. Image courtesy of the artist
"Recovering Art," the major 2026 exhibition at The Dax Centre in Melbourne, continues in the centre's Main Gallery through December 18, 2026. Guest curated by Andy Butler, the show opened on May 15 and gathers more than 40 works.
The exhibition draws on The Cunningham Dax Collection, which the centre describes as one of the world's most significant holdings of art made in the context of mental illness and psychological trauma. Its earliest pieces were produced in the first art programs set up inside psychiatric institutions, and "Recovering Art" uses that founding period as its point of departure. From there it traces how ideas about the link between art and mental health have shifted, from the era of institutionalisation to the present day.
Early archival material and works from the collection are shown alongside new and recent pieces by contemporary artists from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. The participants are Abdul Abdullah, Ruth Buchanan, Graeme Doyle, Carla Krijt, Jenna Lee, NEG, Renee Sutton, Luke Willis Thompson and John Young Zerunge. Together the works consider the many roles art can take in a person's life while living with mental illness and disability. Among them is John Young Zerunge's "Time's Slow Passing #6," a 2023 etching and lithograph on rag paper from his series "Time's Slow Passing."
The Dax Centre is housed in the Kenneth Myer Building at 30 Royal Parade in Parkville and forms part of the SANE Australia Group. It is open from Wednesday to Friday, 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., with other times available by appointment, and guided tours can be arranged.
Alongside "Recovering Art," the centre's spring programme includes "Tasting the Divine," a series of paintings of toucans eating papaya by the Australian-Colombian artist Joshua Searle, on view in the Studio Dax Gallery from September 30, with an opening evening on Thursday, October 22, from 6 to 8 p.m. The Poetry @ DAX evenings also return, beginning on Thursday, October 29, with readings by Anne M. Carson, Anne Evely, Jessica Wilkinson and Sandy Jeffs, hosted by Dr. Jennifer Harrison.
