Narcotics, Preservatives, Skeptics is an exhibition of new works by Corey Black. The works in this show utilise containment, transparency and opacity to flirt with and disrupt the membranes of surface, image and materiality. Utilising discreet structures fabricated from perspex and timber, found and manipulated media are cut, rearranged, and transferred onto their surfaces. The exhibition foregrounds the ways surfaces transmit affect and the pleasure of cutting within structures that hold various and multiple images and objects. Protective yet assertive, they probe the thresholds between image, substrate, and viewer. Black’s images are specific yet scattered, drawing from personal archives, medical documentation and digital media – they unfold as actants in space as though chemicals passing through a body.
Each work contains elements that are baked into their own discreet networks, creating self-contained yet open vantage points. Sculptural extractions extend imagery into space. Therein one can find a list of ingredients for seeing, being and consuming each work; individually and wholly.
Related events
Artists’ Talks:
Upcoming exhibitions
VIEW 2026:
Cass Li, Dylan Marriott, Elesa Stellios, Toni Tait, XinShuo Zhuo
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VIEW is our annual exhibition showcasing early-career artists at the forefront of an emerging generation of photo-media practitioners
Canberra Contemporary Photographic Prize 2026:
Various artists
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Exhibition and competition celebrating both emerging and established talents in photo media.
Halfway Seen Halfway Home (半窥半归) :
Guylieuzy (Ming Liew & Will Wang)
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A moving-image exhibition exploring Chinese–Australian hybrid identity shaped by migration, memory and cultural negotiation.