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A life beyond diagnostic labels: Recovering Art exhibition opened this week at Dax Centre, Melbourne

The Dax Centre and SANE Australia

Key Facts:

• The exhibition Recovering Art pairs historical works from the Cunningham Dax Collection (created in Victorian psychiatric hospitals from the 1950s) with contemporary pieces by five leading artists
• The Cunningham Dax Collection was established by Dr Eric Cunningham Dax, who introduced art programmes in psychiatric hospitals but also used artwork for diagnostic purposes
• Curated by Andy Butler, the exhibition challenges institutional approaches to mental health and creativity, featuring works from both the historical collection and new pieces by contemporary artists
• Featured historical works include landscape paintings by Rene Sutton, pieces by Graeme Doyle, and works by Carla Krijt and NEG
• The free exhibition runs from 15 May to 11 December 2026 at The Dax Centre in Parkville, Victoria, opening Wednesday to Friday

Recovering Art is a major new exhibition pairing works from the Cunningham Dax Collection—developed from artworks created inside Victorian psychiatric hospitals from the 1950s onwards—with new and recent works by leading contemporary artists Ruth Buchanan, John Young Zerunge, Abdul Abdullah, Jenna Lee and Luke Willis Thompson.

 

Curated by Melbourne-based artist, curator and writer Andy Butler, invited artists engage deeply with questions of archive, classification and the ways institutions observe, interpret and represent lived experience. Together, their works offer new perspectives on the complex relationship between creativity and mental health.

 

The Cunningham Dax Collection was established by Dr Eric Cunningham Dax, a psychiatrist who introduced formal art and music programs into Victorian psychiatric hospitals including Larundel, Royal Park, Beechworth and Ballarat. While Dax championed art as a tool for recovery, he also interpreted these works diagnostically to reflect symptoms and conditions regardless of the artist’s intent. The kind of categorising and diagnostic framework Dax deployed belongs to a longer history of institutional surveillance and control.

 

Recovering Art sits within this history and pushes back against it, unsettling its legacies and making room for lives that exceed the taxonomies projected onto them.

 

At the heart of the exhibition is a significant selection of works from the Collection, including landscape paintings by Rene Sutton (Larundel, 1958–1960), works by poet and artist Graeme Doyle, paintings and writing by Carla Krijt, works on paper by NEG, and redacted archival materials.

 

Exhibition from contemporary artists include:

• A new body of work by Ruth Buchanan, including an intergenerational collaboration with her daughter Eleanor Buchanan, and legendary Maori activist photographer John Miller.
• John Young Zerunge’s Time’s Slow Passing, based on the diary of Yarra Bend Asylum inmate John Au Siug
• A painting from Abdul Abdullah’s Magical Thinking series
• Jenna Lee’s work examining Larrakia knowledge systems and institutional taxonomies
• Work by internationally acclaimed artist Luke Willis Thompson engaging with psychiatry, the state and mental illness

 

The exhibition takes its title from Recovering Art, a 2006 publication by Dr Belinda Robson, whose research first opened many of the critical questions explored in this project.

 

Monday 18 May – 11 December 2026

The Dax Centre
Kenneth Myer Building, 30 Royal Parade, Parkville VIC 3052

Exhibition open Wednesday to Friday: 11:00am – 3:30pm

Free Entry

 

 

About us:

About the Curator - Andy Butler is a Melbourne-based artist, curator and writer whose work focuses on archival moving image and the colonial circulation of knowledge. His writing has appeared in frieze, The Saturday Paper, The Monthly and Art + Australia, and his curatorial projects have been presented at MUMA, UTS Gallery and Bundoora Homestead.

About The Dax Centre - The Dax Centre is a subsidiary of SANE Australia, and it’s mission is to advance understanding of mental health and reduce stigma through art-based exhibitions and educational programs. The Dax Centre is the custodian of the Cunningham Dax Collection, one of largest collections in the world of artworks created by people with lived experience of mental illness and trauma. Learn more at www.daxcentre.org

Contact details:

Interviews are available with Andy Butler, Dax Centre Gallery Manager Nathan Schroeder and contemporary artists. For interviews or more information about the exhibition, please contact [email protected].