The Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) is committed to experimentation and ambition. The Hatched: National Graduate Show has long reflected this.
Bringing together tertiary graduate artists from across Australia, Hatched 2026 will mark the show’s 35th year of offering a snapshot of emerging contemporary practice and ideas that are shaping the cultural landscape.
Located in Boorloo/Perth, PICA commissions and presents artists working at the forefront of current practice across exhibition, performance, studio programs and artist-led initiatives.
“Hatched embodies PICA’s purpose,” says the organisation’s CEO, Hannah Mathews. “It recognises artists at a moment of possibility, providing an institutional platform that supports bold ideas and sustained practice as artists transition through different stages in their professional life.”
Hatched operates as both a national survey and launchpad, reflecting PICA’s role in shaping conversations around art.
The Hatched curatorial associate, Mia Palmer-Verevis, says: “Hatched is much more than just an exhibition. For many artists, it’s the first time they will present their work in an institutional context, and particularly one with the scale and recognition of PICA.”
Where careers take shape
Hatched has long been a launchpad for artists whose practices would go on to extend beyond Australia. The Kamilaroi/Bigambul artist Archie Moore, a 1998 Hatched alumnus, was awarded the Golden Lion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, while the 2005 Hatched alumnus Khaled Sabsabi is representing Australia at the Biennale this year.
Following in the footsteps of these illustrious alumni, the artists of 2026 are at the very beginning of their professional careers.
Palmer-Verevis says: “Amongst this group, the artists confront the nuances of a diverse range of lived experiences, with some tapping into complex layers of ancestry and lineage, while others seek to convey the intricacies of natural systems and evolving modes of digital representation. The issues explored in these varied and multidisciplinary creative practices are urgent and profound.”
Practices in focus
-
Chelsea Carkeet, Kujaka, no. 3 2025. Courtesy the artist.
Across the 2026 cohort, artists explore the intersection of private experience and public life, examining how identity, memory and systems of power are shaped, governed and contested.
For the Yanyuwa/Garrwa artist Chelsea Carkeet, a Queensland College of Art and Design graduate, this reckoning imagines a fantastical Indigenous science-fiction world. Carkeet’s work, Future Ancestors, uses experimental photographic processes to obscure and modify figures and space and undermine the authority of archival images.
The resulting photo-objects draw attention to gaps within archival records, where First Nations knowledge has been misrepresented or erased, inviting audiences to consider how history is constructed and contested.
-
Madeleine Coates, Everything exactly as they left it (lounge room, 1993) 2025. Photo: Sam Roberts.
An interrogation of the supposed objectivity of images and the myth-making tendencies of memory takes a different form in the work of the Adelaide Central School of Art graduate Madeleine Coates. In Everything exactly as they left it (lounge room, 1993), the artist reconstructs interior spaces drawn from memory and family archives. Here, both space and time are made visible through drawing. As everyday life dematerialises into the digital, Coates draws attention to the slower pace of memory and materiality.
Sydney Jarrett, a graduate from the University of New South Wales, brings attention to the experience of visibility as a transgender person into the public space, where behaviour is shaped and regulated. Gate-crash consists of two sculptural works, Pointing the finger and High beams, both of which use reworked materials drawn from state infrastructure to expose the mechanisms through which order is produced.
-
Sydney Jarrett, installation view 2025. Courtesy the artist.
Steel poles and police car doors are reconfigured into unstable encounters, in which visibility, control and movement are actively renegotiated. These subtle shifts unsettle the authority of public space, revealing how fragile and constructed its systems of control can be.
-
Amirah Rachwani, Ruler of the WORLD 2025. Courtesy the artist.
Continuing a sustained interrogation of the status quo, the National Art School graduate Amirah Rachwani pushes her practice across time as she depicts herself in the style of Elizabethan portraiture, replete with the symbolism of dominance and authority. In Ruler of the WORLD, Rachwani, a transgender Lebanese Australian woman, inserts herself into the Western canon, in order to upend it. She stages an intervention, remixing costume, background and form into a kaleidoscopic image that is both visually playful and conceptually pointed, reordering the terms of representation.
From support to launch
As early career artists prepare to enter professional practice, a network of support behind the scenes ensures collegiality and professional development.
“Hatched seeks to nurture artists at a career stage that can feel uncertain,” Palmer-Verevis says. “The period of transition from art school into professional practice can often feel unsupported and daunting. This is where PICA steps in, providing Hatched as an opportunity for artists to cut their teeth and find their voice.”
It is a model that reflects PICA’s long-standing belief that emerging artists need time, care and institutional backing to sustain independent and critical practice.
Rachwani will travel from western Sydney to Perth to participate in PICA’s program of artist talks and workshops during the opening week of Hatched. “It’s a huge spotlight moment, but there are also opportunities for further professional development,” she says. “I’m excited to be part of the exhibition, but I’m also excited about all the practical advice and activities. Real career advice. That is something artists don’t often get.”
Hatched brings together a new generation of artists, forming a national cohort that may become a valuable community network as they advance their careers. “I look forward to getting to know the other artists,” Rachwani says. “Everything I’ve ever accomplished as an artist is through making friends with other artists.”
For visitors, this national convergence offers a glimpse of what may shape Australian contemporary art in the years to come. As Palmer-Verevis says: “Hatched 2026 assures us that the future of experimental and critical practice is in good hands.”
Hatched: National Graduate Show 2026 at PICA is open from 1 August to 4 October, with free entry.
Discover how PICA supports contemporary artists and experimental practice across Australia.