As the weather heats up in Sydney, Lewers: Penrith Regional Gallery at Emu Plains takes a deep dive into the symbolic place of the swimming pool in the Australian landscape and psyche.
From 8 November 2025, The Pool Show brings together works by Australian and international artists including new commissions by Dennis Golding, Katerina Asistin, JD Reforma, and Marian Abboud and the Forked Tongue Storytellers Collective.
“This is the second in our series of summer blockbuster exhibitions following Spot the Difference in 2024. In The Pool Show, we turn our attention to the local swimming pool, not just as a space of leisure and relaxation, but also as a site where the politics of our time play out; where your race, postcode, gender or sexuality can be determinants for who can swim, and how they are treated in the pool,” said Toby Chapman, Penrith Regional Gallery Director.
The Pool Show wades into this context, responding to cultural, climactic and social issues in Western Sydney, set against a snapshot of the swimming pool’s place in Australian art history.
In partnership with the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the exhibition brings together new and existing artworks by 17 Australian and two international artists. Together the works span nearly 100 years, from Harold Cazneux’s evocative 1930s silver gelatin photographs to Max Dupain’s 1988 shots taken at Orange Pool to new commissions by emerging Western Sydney artists.
Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay artist Dennis Golding will present a new body of work exploring the legacy and ongoing impact of the 1965 Freedom Ride, the bus that travelled across regional NSW 60 years ago protesting against segregation and exclusion of Aboriginal people from town facilities, including at local swimming pools.
“Echoing Pathways is a collaborative artwork I created with youth from my pop’s hometown of Collarenebri (Kamilaroi Country), guided with stories by Elder, Aunty Roslyn McGregor. We began by listening to histories of exclusion from public spaces across north-west NSW, and the lived experiences of discrimination, resilience and survival that continue to shape our communities today,” said Golding.
“From these conversations, new expressions and ideas emerged in a curated printmaking workshop at the National Art School in Sydney. Each young person etched their own drypoint plate, inscribing words, designs and symbols that spoke of strength, resilience, and their visions of the future. When printed together, these plates align like the lanes of a pool, yet instead of dividing they connect. They become pathways of possibility.”
The Pool Show considers how our changing communities continue to challenge assumptions about these often humble and familiar civic facilities, as well as visual stereotypes of the poolside bronzed body and sleek swimmer.
Western Sydney-based artist Marian Abboud and Forked Tongue Storytellers Collective will document recently arrived migrant and refugee women as they learn how to swim; Mount Druitt artist Katerina Asistin focuses on Mount Druitt Swimming Centre, creating a new body of work around the popular local pool; and JD Reforma revisits images from his family archive, remaking poolside holiday snapshots as both portals and looking glasses into public and personal moments in time.
Loans from the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ collection include David Hockney’s Water pouring into swimming pool, Santa Monica (1964) and Ian Fairweather’s The Pool (1959). David Capra’s 2014 performance video work Birthing things in the spirit: the waterbirth is a joyous and whimsical synchronised swimming spectacular in honour of the artist’s pet dachshund, created with over-50s swimmers at Eagle Vale Central Pool in Campbelltown.
“The Pool Show is playful and joyous, celebrating our relationship to these often beloved spaces for recreation and relaxation, but also examining the mythologies and assumptions surrounding Australian pool culture, particularly around issues of accessibility and sustainability,” said Joanna Gilmour, Penrith Regional Gallery Curator, Collections.
The Pool Show
Lewers: Penrith Regional Gallery, 86 River Road, Emu Plains (NSW)
Exhibition: 8 November 2025 – 15 February 2026
Free entry
For more information, visit: www.penrithregionalgallery.com.au for details.
Images: Harold Cazneaux, Dee Why Pool II, 1934 gelatin silver photograph 19.5 x 32 cm (image/sheet). Art Gallery of New South Wales. Gift of the Cazneaux family 2000 | Dennis Golding, Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay artist – photo by Liz Ham | Ian Fairweather, The Pool, 1959 synthetic polymer paint on cardboard on hardboard 96.5 x 117.8 cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales. Purchased with funds provided by the Cezanne Dinner Fund 1999. © Ian Fairweather. DACS/Copyright Agency, 2025