Sydney Contemporary 2026

Sebastian Helling. Joshua Searle. Celia Lees.

3 - 6 September 2026 • Carriageworks • Booth E05

Meet the Artists
Thursday 3rd September at Booth E05

Three striking international and Australian voices come together in a seamless expression of global and gestural mark-making, signalling Saint Cloche’s emergence as an international player at Sydney Contemporary for 2026.

“Since 2015, Saint Cloche has been shaped by meaningful relationships between artists, collectors and creative communities,” says Gallery Director Kitty Clark. “Our presentation at Sydney Contemporary feels like a natural extension of that dialogue, bringing Australian and international practices into closer conversation.”

For 2026 at Carriageworks, Clark has brought into conversation one of Canada’s most acclaimed new abstract painters, Celia Lees (born 1996), with Norway’s highly sought-after Sebastian Helling (born 1975), whose experimental canvases convulse with ceaseless curiosity. Their compelling play of international painting is grounded in contemporary Australia by a large-scale ceramic installation by Mornington Peninsula-based Joshua Searle (born 1998), whose work speaks eloquently of his Colombian diasporic experience.

Unfolding in a collective world narrative, the work of these three artists guide audiences through a dramatic reveal of bold colour, sculptural form and material exploration, where the local and global lean in: from the emotional resonance of Lees’ traces with their accumulated layers of action painting, to the epic tableau of Searle’s 100 Years of Solitude, with 52 vessels marking the years since his family’s arrival in Australia, along with the wider art histories that play out in Helling’s multilayered and sensory work, created most recently at Edvard Munch’s former studio near Oslo.

Saint Cloche’s 2026 presentation at Sydney Contemporary builds significantly on the gallery’s winter group show You Little Rippa (crème de la crème), curated by Saxon Quinn, which brought together 10 international artists in a new gallery model for creative exchange, along with Saint Cloche’s Art Trail Award at the inaugural Paddington Business Awards in June 2026.

“Now at Carriageworks,” says Clark, “Sydney Contemporary gives us an opportunity to bring these distinct practices together and create a dialogue that reaches well beyond geography.”

- Michael Fitzgerald, Senior Editor, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, and author of Late: A Novel

Visit us from 3 - 6 September at Carriageworks, Booth E05 - view booth location

“Meaning emerges from density, friction and movement. A moment of combat, when distinctions blur – bodies, gestures, colours and intentions press into one another without a clear hierarchy. In a melee, there is no single point of focus.”

- Sebastian Helling

“Through ceramics and painting, 100 Years of Solitude chronicles the journey of a family shaped by movement, love, solitude and resilience, offering a body of work that honours both the magic and the ordinariness of diasporic life – where every vessel, every story, becomes a site of connection between home and elsewhere.”

- Joshua Searle

“This body of work, traces, considers the subtle ways we are shaped through contact, with people, places and the passing moments that quietly alter us over time. Built through fluid layers that stain, disperse and settle into raw canvas, the paintings evolve through accumulation rather than intention, allowing each mark to emerge in relation to those that came before.”

- Celia Lees

Sebastian Helling. Joshua Searle. Celia Lees.

Sebastian Helling (born 1975) is an internationally active artist based in Oslo, Norway, who received his BA from the London College of Printing and has a double MFA from the Royal College of Art in London and the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. His practice encompasses painting and drawing in a field that resists conventional categorisation, with works that are neither abstract nor figurative. Recent solo presentations include Melee at QB Gallery in Oslo, Did You See Me? at the Kristiansund Kunsthall, and Somnambulist at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery in London. Helling has more recently grounded himself in Norwegian art history, living and working at the hallowed Ekely estate near Oslo, where Edvard Munch, painter of The Scream, spent the last 30 years of his life, sometimes even painting in Munch’s former studio.

Joshua Searle (born 1998) is an Australian–Colombian artist working across painting and sculpture. His practice explores memory, inheritance and cultural reclamation through the transformation of historical objects, family narratives and material traditions. Drawing on his heritage, Searle revisits pre-Columbian artefacts, museum collections and oral histories to consider how culture is carried across generations despite histories of migration, colonisation and displacement. Searle was the recipient of the 2024 Mason Family Trust Fellowship, which supported research into Indigenous Colombian goldsmithing and ceramic traditions. His work has been presented in major public gallery exhibitions including Bienvenido at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, and has been recognised through selection as a finalist in the Sir John Sulman Prize, the inaugural MAC yapang Art Prize and the Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award. 100 Years of Solitude has been inspired by the alchemy and magic realism of Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Márquez.

Celia Lees (born 1996) is a Toronto-based abstract artist whose work explores memory, emotion and the passage of time through bold expressive gesture. Her large-scale paintings channel the rhythm of lived experience and human connection into vibrant intuitive compositions, inviting quiet reflection and emotional resonance. With a background in design and fashion, Lee brings a refined sensitivity to materiality, texture and colour. Her works are held in private and commercial collections worldwide, including Scotiabank Arena (Toronto), 200 Amsterdam (New York), and The Laurel (West Palm Beach). Lees recently took part in a live painting experience with Johnnie Walker in Los Angeles, bringing her expressive process-driven approach to a dynamic public setting. (born 1996) is a Toronto-based abstract artist whose work explores memory, emotion and the passage of time through bold expressive gesture. Her large-scale paintings channel the rhythm of lived experience and human connection into vibrant intuitive compositions, inviting quiet reflection and emotional resonance. With a background in design and fashion, Lee brings a refined sensitivity to materiality, texture and colour. Her works are held in private and commercial collections worldwide, including Scotiabank Arena (Toronto), 200 Amsterdam (New York), and The Laurel (West Palm Beach). Lees recently took part in a live painting experience with Johnnie Walker in Los Angeles, bringing her expressive process-driven approach to a dynamic public setting.