Exhibition of Australian Indigenous art drawn from the National Gallery of Victoria collection, charting watershed moments in Indigenous art from the late 19th century to the present.
The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art opens at the Portland Art Museum on September 5, 2026, and runs through January 3, 2027. It's billed as the largest exhibition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art ever presented in North America, and it's the only West Coast stop on its tour.
Everything in the show comes from the collection of Melbourne's National Gallery of Victoria, and that includes works that have never left Australia before this. It charts watershed moments in Indigenous art from the late 19th century to the present, all rooted in what's described as the world's oldest continuous living culture. You'll see customary forms like the conceptual map paintings of the Central and Western Deserts and ochre-on-bark works from far Northern Australia, alongside experimental weavings, neon, video, and photography. The range is pretty wide—traditional bark and weaving sitting next to neon and video—so it covers a lot of ground in one go.
The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Victoria and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and it's part of a North American tour that also stopped at the National Gallery of Art and the Denver Art Museum. That makes Portland the only West Coast city to host it.
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Tickets run from $0 to $27.50, and the museum is at 1219 SW Park Ave in downtown Portland. It runs from September 5, 2026, through January 3, 2027.
Date
Sunday, 5 September 2027
10:00
Location
Portland Art MuseumPrice
Paid
Recommended Age
+14 years
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