Delmar Gallery Exhibition

Delmar Gallery's 2026 exhibition program will be launched this weekend with exhibitions by two up-and-coming Sydney painters.

Islands not to scale (opani) by Mark Maurangi Carrol and Day to day and night by Elena Papanikolakis will be open to the public from midday on Saturday 14 February, with the official reception on Sunday 15 February 2-4pm. 

You are warmly invited to join us for the opening celebrations and enjoy an exhibition walkthrough with the artists at 2.30pm.

RSVP here

About the exhibitions

Islands not to scale (opani) brings together key paintings from a trilogy of exhibitions held over the last 12 months by Mark Maurangi Carrol.

In this series, Mark draws on childhood experiences growing up in Australia and the Cook Islands (Avaki Mai) and recent trips to Rarotonga, to create distilled, poetic images reflecting on migration, memory and ancestral presence.

Central to his practice is a painting method he has devised, informed by traditional pāreu textile printing, where he applies paint on the reverse side until the image bleeds through. The resulting image is partial and tenuous, a metaphor for memory itself.

Mark studied at National Art School majoring in printmaking. He was awarded the Mosman Art Prize in 2025 and the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship in 2023, which included a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. He is represented in Sydney by Nasha Gallery. He has been selected for the 2026 Adelaide Biennial at the Art Gallery of South Australia, opening in March.

Day to day and night includes paintings and collages begun during COVID and developed over the last four years by Elena Papanikolakis.

The exhibition is grounded in a diaristic approach to creative practice involving collecting and sifting through a range of personal, cultural and found fragments. 

Classical Greek ceramics, pre-loved books, family snapshots and journal drawings are some of the catalysts for her enigmatic, dream-like compositions that oscillate between abstraction and figuration.

Elena studied at ANU School of Art majoring in painting. She was awarded the Art Gallery of NSW's Paris studio in 2016 and was selected for the Museum of Contemporary Art's Primavera: Young Australian Artists exhibition in 2017. Her work has been included in numerous exhibitions, most recently at Day01 Gallery, Tiles Lewisham and Hazelhurst Art Centre.

Exhibition dates:
14 February - 22 March

Exhibition reception:
Sunday 15 February, 2-4pm (artist talks at 2.30pm)

Gallery open:
Wednesday - Sunday, 12 - 5pm

Image - Mark Maurangi Carrol, The daughters of Ina (Kite) 2024, oil enamel and permanent marker on linen, 213 x 396 . Courtesy of Nasha Gallery, Sydney.