MIKE HEWSON
Mike Hewson builds things that shouldn't exist in the places they exist. A barbecue at the centre of a major art museum. Fully plumbed drinking fountains assembled from salvaged buckets and building site offcuts. A playground of looping monkey bars threading through the concrete columns of one of Australia's most significant cultural institutions. An NBA regulation hoop clamped to an uprooted palm tree. The work is simultaneously an engineering problem, a social proposition, and a standing provocation: who decides what a public space is for, and what happens when someone builds something different inside it anyway.
Hewson trained first as a structural engineer, completing a Bachelor of Engineering with Honours in Civil Engineering from the University of Canterbury, Aotearoa New Zealand, in 2007. It was the 2011 Christchurch earthquake that catalysed his shift toward art, toward the question of what gets rebuilt, what gets abandoned, and who gets to decide. He completed a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from Columbia University, New York, in 2016. The two educations are inseparable in the work. He knows how structures fail. He knows how to build things that survive. Both inform every object he makes.
His award-winning public commissions across Sydney and Melbourne have redefined what public art commissions can ask of their audiences. St Peters Fences, Simpson Park, Sydney (2020). Palm Hoop, Alexandria, Sydney (2021). Pockets Park, Leichhardt, Sydney (2022). Rocks on Wheels, Southbank, Melbourne (2022). Each project is conceptually rigorous and built to be used - spaces where children climb, communities gather, and the work earns its place by being genuinely needed. The artist, in Hewson's framing, is a host. The key is under the mat. What happens next belongs to the people who walk in.
His first solo art museum presentation, The Key's Under the Mat, transformed the Nelson Packer Tank at the Art Gallery of New South Wales into a handmade utopia of parks, recording studios, playgrounds, and communal cooking infrastructure, constructed from thousands of salvaged materials developed across 14 months in his Sydney studio. The exhibition ran from October 2025 through mid-2026.
The Brickhaus Baddies, presented by Post-American Fine Arts at Basel Social Club 2026, compress that same sensibility to hand-held scale. Thirty unique objects built from vitrified industrial brick, chopped and reassembled, embedded with stones, metals, and salvaged material from Hewson's personal archive. They have faces. They sit on desks. They are desk objects that refuse to stay neutral - each one a small argument about what we salvage, what we keep, and what stares back. Where Hewson's public work asks what a city block can hold, the Brickhaus Baddies ask what a palm can hold. The scale changes. The question doesn't.
Mike Hewson works independently, based in Sydney. Post-American Fine Arts presents Brickhaus Baddies at Basel Social Club 2026, continuing a multi-year collaboration with Bobby Jesus.
Installation View: Mike Hewson, Micah Grasse, Frances Stark 2021 | Photo by Jon Setter
Installation View: Mike Hewson, Micah Grasse, Frances Stark 2021 | Photo by Jon Setter
Mike Hewson 2021 | Photo by Jon Setter
Mike Hewson: The Key's Under the Mat
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney 4 October 2025 – 23 August 2026
For his first solo art museum presentation, Mike Hewson transformed the Nelson Packer Tank at the Art Gallery of New South Wales into a handmade utopia of parks, recording studios, playgrounds, and communal cooking infrastructure - constructed from thousands of salvaged materials developed across 14 months in his Sydney studio.
The exhibition represents the architectural scale of Hewson's practice. The Brickhaus Baddies presented at Basel Social Club 2026 compress that same sensibility to hand-held: where Hewson's institutional work asks what a city block can hold, the Brickhaus Baddies ask what a palm can hold. The scale changes. The question doesn't.
(Images: Mike Hewson: The Key's Under the Mat, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2025–2026. Courtesy of the artist.)
Mike Hewson
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1985, Aotearoa New Zealand. Lives and works in Sydney, Australia.
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2016 — Master of Fine Arts (Visual Arts), Columbia University, New York
2007 — Bachelor of Engineering (Civil, First Class Honours), University of Canterbury, Aotearoa New Zealand
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2025 — The Key's Under the Mat, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
2024 — Fountains, Lett Thomas (formerly Michael Lett), Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, New Zealand
2013 — Stud Flight, Blue Oyster, Dunedin, New Zealand
2013 — Flip-Flop (G. Thackway), Alaska Projects, Sydney, Australia
2013 — Polymorphia, Firstdraft Gallery, Sydney, Australia 2011
Under Standing Loss, 45 Downstairs, Melbourne, Australia 2011
Fallen 3, Alexis Fine Arts Gallery, Christchurch, New Zealand
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2026 — The Office, Basel Social Club, Post-American Fine Arts, Viadukstrasse 33, Basel, Switzerland
2025 — The Pool Show, Penrith Regional Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2025 — The Sculpture Show, Minerva, Sydney, Australia
2025 — A Good Idea, Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2021 — Palm Hoop #1, Alexandria, Sydney, Australia, Post-American Fine Arts 2018
(Un)Conditional IV, The Physics Room, Christchurch, New Zealand 2016
MFA Thesis Exhibition, Fisher Landau Centre, New York 2015
Fl0ating P0int, Judith Charles Gallery, New York 2015
MFA First Year Show, Wallach Art Gallery, New York 2014
Alaska X DP, Dog Park, Christchurch, New Zealand 2013
Breathing Room, MOP Projects, Sydney, Australia 2013
Firstdraft After Dark, Firstdraft, Art Month Sydney, Australia
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2026 — Coal Loader Palm Grove, Infrastructure NSW, Sydney, Australia
2022 — Rocks on Wheels, Southbank, City of Melbourne, Australia
2022 — Pockets Park, Leichhardt, Inner West Council, Sydney, Australia
2020 — St Peters Fences, St Peters, Inner West Council, Sydney, Australia
2019 — Lawson Poole Block Stack, City of Casey, Melbourne, Australia
2018 — Placed Illawarra Landscape, City of Wollongong, Australia
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2015 — Pushkin Square, Moscow, Russia
2015 — 125th Street Broadway, Harlem, New York
2014 — Un-PACE-d, Christchurch, New Zealand
2014 — Of-Fences Port Hedland, Port Hedland, Australia
2014 — Skybridge, Christchurch City Council, New Zealand
2014 — Prop Hide, Christchurch City Council, New Zealand
2013 — IT HOLDS UP, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney
2013 — Government Life Suspension, Christchurch, New Zealand
2012 — Unwin's Stage 1 & 2, Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, Sydney
2012 — Homage to the Lost Spaces, Christchurch, New Zealand
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2023 — Winner, AILA National Award of Excellence
2020 — Winner, Playspace of the Year (under $0.5M), PLA National
2018 — Winner, Playspace of the Year (under $0.5M), PLA NSW/ACT
2014 — Finalist, NAB Emerging Artist, Art Month Sydney
2013 — Winner, Best Artist, FBi SMAC Awards, Sydney
2010 — Finalist, Anthony Harper Award, COCA, Christchurch
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Paton, Justin, and Sullivan, Emily. Mike Hewson: The Key's Under the Mat. Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2025. Essays by Justin Paton, Emily Sullivan, Megan Dunn, Agatha Gothe-Snape, and Liam Gillick.
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Wang, Michelle. "Art Gallery NSW Tank: Artist Mike Hewson's Summer Wonderland." The Guardian, 4 October 2025. Moran, Robert. "Sausage Sizzles and Saunas: Is This the Year's Most Controversial Art Show?" Sydney Morning Herald, 4 September 2025. Fairley, Gina. "Mike Hewson's The Key's Under the Mat Review." ArtsHub, 15 October 2025. Mockler, Richard. "Mike Hewson Takes Kids Four Storeys Underground." ABC, 19 October 2025. Mestrom, Sanné. "The Art Gallery of NSW Has Transformed Into a Space to Cook, Play, Do Laundry and Linger." The Conversation, 27 October 2025. Seidler, Jonathan. "The Sublime Structures of Artist Mike Hewson." Esquire Australia, 3 March 2024. Paton, Justin. Art News Aotearoa, 1 April 2024. Neustein, David. "Slide and Family Stone." The Monthly, April 2023. Kirk, Mimi. "The Art of Designing a Dangerous-Looking Playground." Bloomberg CityLAB, 5 February 2023. Bickersteth, Rupert. "Mike Hewson Rocks on Wheels Boulders Melbourne." Dezeen, 4 January 2023. Hennessy, Kate. "You Can't Escape Danger: The Artist Making Risky Playgrounds." The Guardian, 14 November 2022. Hennessy, Kate. New York Times Style Magazine, 11 June 2022. TEDx Sydney. "Playing With Risk: The Dangers of Thinking Safe." 2022. Cross, David. "Unfettered Actions: Sportification, Playgrounds and the Public Realm." Artlink, 25 August 2021. Diner, Eli. Cultured Magazine, 17 March 2021. Rewi, Adrienne. Art News New Zealand, Winter 2012. Radio New Zealand, Arts on Sunday, 27 November 2011.
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