YAM: September

EXHIBITIONS

Archibald Prize 2025, Until 13 September
Experience Australia’s most celebrated portrait award, the Archibald Prize, at Yarrila Arts and Museum. Featuring compelling portrayals of figures from stage and screen, music, media, and journalism, alongside reflections on activism, politics, and everyday life, Archibald Prize 2025 on tour from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, offers a rich and diverse portrait of Australian society today. Don’t miss this opportunity to experience one of the nation’s most iconic exhibitions! The Archibald Prize is an Art Gallery of New South Wales touring exhibition. Major partner, Optus.
 

Young Archie Coffs Harbour, Until 13 September
Young Archie Coffs Harbour celebrates the creativity of budding young artists aged 5 to 18 from across the Coffs Coast. As part of the Archibald Prize 2025 regional tour, this family-focused initiative highlights imagination, storytelling and connection through portraiture.

Nikky Morgan Smith: Index Act, Until 6 Sept
Combining performance-based photography, mark-making and mixed media, Nikky Morgan-Smith presents a series of multi-layered compositions exploring linear time, memory, and physical existence.

Terri Butterworth: Small Worlds, 10 Sept – 11 Oct
Small Worlds presents intimate paintings that explore landscape, emotion and the interconnectedness of nature. Through observation, painting and experimentation, Butterworth uses gesture, line, shape, colour and texture to create evocative compositions that reflect the shifting qualities and ever-changing nature of the landscape around us. Exhibition Opening: Thu 10 Sept, 5:30 – 7pm

Murray Fredericks: The Salt Lake, 26 Sept – 15 Nov
In 2003 photographer Murray Fredericks first visited Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre, one of the world’s largest salt lakes, located in the deserts of central Australia. He has since returned 31 times to develop works that traverse time and place, frequently utilising weather, reflection, perspective, light and darkness to convey a profound sense of scale, isolation and transcendence. Blurring the boundaries between land, sky and horizon, his images transform the salt lake into a contemplative and otherworldly space that invites reflection on our relationship with the natural world.

Petrina Hicks: Snakes and Mirrors, 26 Sept – 15 Nov
Petrina Hicks works with photography to create large-scale photographs that draw from mythology, fables, and historical art imagery to reframe the contemporary female experience. In Snakes and mirrors Hicks challenges the traditional human centred vision of the world to emphasise the interconnectedness of humans and animals.

The Huxleys: Bad Sports, 26 Sept – 15 Nov
Will and Garrett Huxley (AUS and Gumbaynggirr/Yorta Yorta) are Melbourne based collaborative performance and visual artists. Bad sports reflects upon the ostracisation you can feel when growing up in a country that values sporting achievement above all else. It can be a real struggle, especially for a creative, shy queer kid searching for kindred spirits. A love of music, art, fashion and the dark underworld is perceived to offer eventual artistic salvation.

The Salt Lake, Snakes and Mirrors, and Bad Sports are Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh) touring exhibitions

PROGRAMS + WORKSHOPS

Family Day – Create with an Artist at YAM, 6 Sept 10:30am – 1:30pm
Bring the whole family and experience the Archibald Prize 2025. Explore the exhibition using children’s labels and a free family activity guide designed to help all ages connect with the stories behind the portraits. Then get creative with hands-on artmaking in a special artist driven creative activation inspired by the exhibition and led by a local artist. Free artmaking. No bookings required. Drop in between 10:30am and 1:30pm.

History Week – Tour and workshop – Keeping Stories: Plants and People, 9 Sept
Discover the stories plants can hold and their connections to people, culture and place in this special History Week program. Enjoy a free tour of Yaamanga (around here) with insights into First Nations knowledge, local history and the region’s multicultural heritage. The program also includes an optional ticketed Botanical Monoprinting Workshop with artist Marc Renshaw, where participants will create expressive prints inspired by local stories and botanical materials. Suitable for beginners and experienced creatives alike.  Free Tour 10 – 10:30am, Workshop 10:45am – 12:45pm, from $10. Bookings essential.

Take a Moment in September: Wed 23 Sept
Take a creative pause in the middle of your busy week on Wednesday 23 September from 12 – 1:30pm. This FREE creative wellbeing program invites you to slow down, recharge, and reconnect through art. Experience a guided exhibition tour and hands-on creative session designed to spark inspiration and nurture mindfulness.

SPRING SCHOOL HOLIDAYS

There’s magic hiding all over Coffs Harbour these spring holidays, you just have to know where to look! From fluorescent bugs to surreal local photography or expressive painting, this spring’s holiday workshops transform the everyday into the extraordinary for school kids of all ages. 

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For general visitor information and exhibition details, visit: yamcoffs.com.au. Follow @yam.coffs on socials for updates.
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Images (Lto R): Archibald Prize 2025 finalist, Natasha Walsh The Yellow Odalisque of Brunswick, oil on copper, 53.2 x 49.9 cm (detail) © the artist.
Nikky Morgan-Smith, unmade bed, chiffon, digital print, acrylic paint, paper in recycled hardwood box, 2026 (detail), photo by Lisa Cross