Paper Chained's third annual exhibition

After curating the first Paper Chained annual art exhibition in Sydney in 2024, then organising for the works to be sent to Brisbane for the second hosting last year, I've decided to play life on an easier mode this year and instead have the third exhibition in my hometown of Newcastle.

The exhibition will be held at The Creator Incubator, an art gallery in the suburb of Hamilton North, from February 12-22, 2026. A launch event will be held on Saturday February 14th at 6pm. I'm still not sure if having the opening on Valentine's Day will have a positive or negative impact, but I suppose there's only one way to find out. Hopefully at least some people will think that taking a date to an exhibition showing over 150 artworks from 12 different countries will be a good idea.

Paper Chained's annual exhibition, as you may recall, is an evolving one. We are receiving new artworks from prisons all the time, and many sell each year at the shows, meaning each version of the exhibition is unique. We are also now at our peak in terms of both the number of artworks and countries represented. In particular, we're quite proud to show our first works from both Japan and the Phillipines, with paintings and sculptures from both countries. And if you missed Paper Chained's exhibition showing the works of Palestinian artist Mohannad Al Azzeh in November 2025, you'll also be able to see some of his works now in the permanent Paper Chained collection in this years exhibition.

You probably won't be hearing too much more from me this year. For starters, this will be my only exhibition held in Australia in 2026. I've once again been contacted to work on illustrations for season 17 of Ear Hustle, which will be keeping me busy, and its likely that once my current Ear Hustle exhibition comes down from display in Newcastle on January 30 it will tour to California at some point, though dates are to be confirmed. Other than that, I'm mostly just working on Paper Chained as normal, my PhD (which is on track to be finished by the due date in November), and also on my third book. I'm pleased to let you know that the first draft of that book is finished, however, having published two books already I can let you know with certainty that the road from first draft to published book on shelves takes well over a year to travel. Rest assured they'll be updates on that in time though.