With spaces in both Melbourne and Sydney, STATION brings a distinctly artist-led approach to their program, responding to the practices, ideas and conversations shaping its artists at any given moment. As Sydney Contemporary celebrates its 10th edition, we speak with gallery Directors Jane and Simon Hayman about the gallery’s enduring relationship with the fair, the evolving Australian art landscape, and more.
STATION operates across both Melbourne and Sydney, with spaces in South Yarra and Surry Hills. How does that dual-city presence shape the way you build your presentation for Sydney Contemporary?
Melbourne and Sydney have their own rhythm, their own communities, and conversations that shape them, and we are grateful to be able to draw on both. But our presentation for the fair is driven by the artists and what’s happening in their studios that year, rather than geography. We have also never shown the same artist twice at Sydney Contemporary – we see each edition as a chance to introduce something that the audience hasn’t seen from us before, keeping the presentation feeling fresh each year.
Pictured: Pedro Wonaeamirri. Courtesy of the artist and STATION. Image by Kitmin Lee Photography.
You’ve exhibited at every edition of the fair since 2013. What has sustained that consistent relationship with the Fair over more than a decade?
We’ve been returning each year since 2013 because Sydney Contemporary has always been about championing artists and their practices, and this strongly aligns with how we run our gallery. When we were solely based in Melbourne, we appreciated the opportunity the fair gave us to embed ourselves within the Sydney arts community. Now we are based in both cities, we appreciate Sydney Contemporary’s wider reach, attracting audiences from other states across Australia, and increasingly from New Zealand and the broader Asia-Pacific region.
Looking back across your participation, are there particular presentations or artist moments at Sydney Contemporary that stand out as especially defining for the gallery?
We tend to curate and present the work of just two or three artists at Sydney Contemporary, rather than expansive group exhibitions. It allows us to build a narrative, a thread between practices, and a dialogue that’s easier for collectors to follow amid the noise of a fair. Our aim is to give people a reason to slow down, engage more deeply with a body of work, ask us questions, and look like they would in one of our galleries.
Our presentation with Nell in 2019 stands out as a great example of this. We showed an in-depth exploration of her practice across painting, sculpture and her ambitious architectural and sonic work, ROCK GATE, in Installation Contemporary. Watching audiences respond to that installation and our booth was a genuine highlight, and the kind of moment a fair makes possible.
Pictured: Nell, ROCK GATE, Installation View at Sydney Contemporary 2019. Courtesy of the artist and STATION Gallery. Image by Zan Wimberley.
How has the Australian contemporary art landscape shifted over the past decade from your perspective?
Locally, we are genuinely excited by the growth of regional and council galleries across the country. Places such as Ngununggula, Bundanon, Newcastle, Rockhampton, and HOTA are all creating real opportunities for both exhibitions and acquisitions, which is incredibly important in supporting the practices of our artists and putting their work in front of audiences well beyond the capitals.
But the bigger shift for us is the growing international visibility of Australian contemporary art. We are committed to supporting that momentum, positioning artists like Daniel Boyd, Zac Langdon-Pole, Nadia Hernández, Shireen Taweel and Pedro Wonaeamirri in front of international curators and collectors through participation in major international art fairs, biennales and collaborative projects. It is important that Australian artists are seen in both commercial and critical contexts, so they can flourish alongside their international peers.
Pictured: Zac Langdon-Pole, Marble Sculptures, Installation View at Sydney Contemporary 2025. Courtesy of the artist and STATION Gallery.
As Sydney Contemporary marks its 10th edition, what does this milestone represent for STATION as a gallery working between two cities, and how do you see your role within that wider ecosystem?
Looking back at the past ten editions of Sydney Contemporary, we feel lucky that STATION has been a part of that and has grown alongside the fair. We’ve watched the team expand and diversify the audience, push the fair into new directions, develop collectors from their first purchase to becoming long-standing clients of ours, and situate Sydney in September as the place to be.
We have never solely prioritised the commercial outcome of the fair. Instead, we’ve sought to help people engage with our artists and the ideas behind their practice, and Sydney Contemporary has been an exemplary partner in that aim.
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Learn more about what STATION is showing at Sydney Contemporary here.
