Best Known For: Painter Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist who was married to Diego Rivera and is still admired as a feminist icon. The self-taught artist died at the age of just 47 in 1954, having spent her last few years mostly bedridden. A sure highlight for September will be the solo exhibition by Laotian-Australian artist Savanhdary Vongpoothorn, which spans over two decades of practice and premieres a large-scale kinetic wall based sculpture at Campbelltown Art Centre (4 September – 15 October). Vongpoothorn’s work interweaves Lao cultural references with Australian and other cultural influences: from Australian Aboriginal art to Scottish tartans, to Indian miniatures and now to Japanese Buddhism.

And a new exhibition James Tylor: Turrangka… In The Shadows at UNSW Galleries, which explores the loss of culture and examines histories of colonisation and their profound impact on Indigenous cultures (12 May – 30 July, free). Data Relationsat ACCA (Vic) a group exhibition exploring our rapidly expanding data economy, data-obsessed society, until 19 March, free. Immersive Frida Kahlo” is joining “ Immersive Van Gogh” in the former Amoeba Music building in Hollywood — it opens to the public Thursday.Less than a month later, I found myself in a studio in Glasgow ‘being Frida Kahlo’. It sounds cheesy but it was all very unreal. The world is small – and I was in the right place at the right time. Desktop Calendars & Supplies - This modern compact desk calendar is designed with unique full coloured illustrations where dates can be seen clearly thanks to its premium paper. It also has a generous writing space allowing annotations and a high-quality stand. Perfect for anyone who need to write down its appointments, to do's and reminders. Tarnanthi atAGSA will also include panpa-panpalya, an ideas conference led by notable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, curators, thinkers and writers, as well as offering an extensive array of talks, tours, performances, workshops, creative activities and education programs. Kahlo’s health issues became nearly all-consuming in 1950. After being diagnosed with gangrene in her right foot, Kahlo spent nine months in the hospital and had several operations during this time. She continued to paint and support political causes despite having limited mobility. In 1953, part of Kahlo’s right leg was amputated to stop the spread of gangrene. In South Australia, JamFactory will launch the national touring exhibition New Exuberance: contemporary Australian textile designTextiles in Art, Design and Fashion (17 February – 16 April), which promises to shift the lens on, and dialogue around, this medium’s impact.

Worth mentioning also is UQ Art Museum’s group exhibition, We Are Electric: Extraction, Extinction and Post-Carbon Futures centring eco-critical conversations around energy futures and extinction (14 February– 24 June), and Patricia Piccinini ’s No Fear of Depths at Cairns Art Gallery (18 February – 16 April), showing works resulting from a Gallery-initiated research residency in Far North Queensland, where Piccinini created a major body of work exploring the specificity and fecundity of tropical life forms in the region. While she never considered herself a surrealist, Kahlo befriended one of the primary figures in that artistic and literary movement, Andre Breton, in 1938. That same year, she had a major exhibition at a New York City gallery, selling about half of the 25 paintings shown there. Kahlo also received two commissions, including one from famed magazine editor Clare Boothe Luce, as a result of the show. On the west coast, the Art Gallery of Western Australia presents the first major museum exhibition of Farah Al Qasimi (born 1991, Abu Dhabi) in Australia. Star Machinecomprises over 20 works from a key five-year period of the artist’s practice (2017–2021) and asks important questions around ‘what do photos do now?’ (4 February– 30 July 2023, free). Extending the lens of the survey exhibition, AGSA is presenting Liam Fleming: Light andcolour following his Guildhouse Fellowship. Fleming will present new sculptural glass work alongside AGSA’s permanent collection of international and Australian art (1 September – 3 December, free).

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It makes for interesting timing ahead of the opening of sis pacific art 1980 – 2023 at GOMA, which will investigate three decades of art-making by a sisterhood of artists from across Oceania, drawing from the QAGOMA Collection. The exhibition will include textiles, ceramics, photography, moving image, sculpture, installation and performance (26 August – 8 September, free). The early years of her relationship with Rivera form the bulk of the opening episode. It reminded me of Modern Couples, an exhibition at the Barbican in London a few years ago, that featured the work of Kahlo and Rivera among many others, and examined how artistic couples managed their creativity. It was full of little insights into ego and collaboration and jealousy. By the end of this opener, he is the “great maestro” and she is the “little wife … always in the shadows”; the irony, of course, being that we know how this story ends, and history has put Rivera in the shadows, albeit brightly lit. Immersive Frida Kahlo” will run solo in the Amoeba Music building for its first two weeks, at which point it will switch off every other day there with “ Immersive Van Gogh” through at least the end of May. Given the popularity of the two shows, an extension is likely. A highlight for March is the return of Melbourne Now at NGV Australia for its second edition. Celebrating new and ambitious local art and design across a range of contemporary disciplines, including fashion and jewellery, painting, sculpture, architecture, ceramics, video, performance, printmaking and publishing, it will include 200-plus Victoria-based artists, including 60 new commissions (24 March – 20 August, free). While, Parrtjima – A Festival in Light(NT) will return to the Red Centre, on Arrernte country, from 7–16 April with the theme Listening with Heart.