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Drawing is often one of the first skills taught in the school art room. Line, proportion, perspective, and observational studies establish the fundamentals. But, the 2026 Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial makes a useful case for what can come next.
Near at Hand, now showing at the Art Gallery of New South Whales, brings together 11 artists whose practices stretch across experimental materials, videos, projection, landscape, and figurative works. Curated by Scott Elliot, Assistant Curator of Australian Art at the Gallery, the sixth edition of the Biennial is concerned with drawing at its most immediate. It focuses on the process of paying close attention to a person, place, thought, or feeling, and finding a visual language for it.
This premise has clear possibilities for educators and the classroom, particularly as NSW teachers prepare for the new Visual Arts 7-10 and Creative Arts K-6 syllabuses in 2027.
The Biennial includes Stephen Benwell, Tom Blake, Andrew Browne, Emily Ferretti, Rosmary Lee, Mary MacDougall, Julian Martin, Jennifer Mills with Darcy Luker, Ryan Nazzari, Louise Weaver, and Gutinarra Yunupinu. Their works collectively present drawing as a practice with considerable range. Some artists begin with close observation of their surroundings, while others use drawing to develop images that originate in imagination. What connects them is their attention to the act of making a mark and the information that mark can carry.
For students, this opens drawing up as a method of inquiry. A drawing can record an environment, work through an idea, capture something fleeting, or make an ordinary subject worthy of prolonged attention.
Rosmary Lee's practice provides a particularly accessible example. Lee won the 24th Dobell Drawing Prize in 2025 with 24-1 (2024), an intricate obvserved work documenting demolition and reconstruction across Sydney suburbs. In Near at Hand, works including Shrub and Old man's beard, both made in 2026, continue her attention to subjects that could easily be passed unnoticed.
There is a practical lesson here without turning Lee's work into a classroom exercise to be copied. Students can begin with their own surroundings and decide what deserves attention. The suburban street, school grounds, a changing neighbourhood, or an object handled ever day can become material for sustained observation. Technical ability remains important, but the choice of what to observe, and why, becomes part of the work.
The Art Gallery of NSW is also creating a direct connection between contemporary learning practice and teaching through its Learning Studio professional development program. Running across four sessions during 2026, separate programs for NSW primary and secondary teachers combine engagement with artworks and artists with art-making, critical and history study, curriculum connections, and practical teaching strategies.
Lee will lead the Term 4 artist workshop for both programs. Her involvement brings the Biennial into a professional learning setting at an important point for NSW arts education. Secondary teachers are preparing for the new Visual Arts 7-10 syllabus, while primary teachers will begin working with the new Creative Arts K-6 syllabus in 2027.
The value of that exchange lies in giving teachers direct access to a practising artist and the decisions behind the finished work. An exhibition presents the result of artistic practice, while a workshop can expose the observation, experimentation, and judgement involved with getting there. Teachers can then translate those ideas according to the age, interests, and circumstances of their own students.
It also offers an alternative to treating contemporary art as something students encounter primarily through reproductions, artist profiles, or completed works. The practices gathered in Near at Hand provide examples of artists actively using drawing to investigate their immediate worlds.
That may be the Biennial's most useful contribution to the art room. Its artists show that learning to draw involves learning how to pay attention. Technique gives students the means to record what they see, but contemporary practice can encourage them to decide what is worth seeing in the first place.
Near at Hand: Dobell Australia Biennial 2026 is showing at the Art Gallery of New South Whales until 7 March, 2027.
