IT WAS already just about the coolest gallery in Canberra (and that’s saying something these days), but now NGA Contemporary justly boasts that it’s exhibiting work by Australia’s coolest printmakers.

“Streetwise: contemporary print culture” is a snazzy exhibition which surveys the last 15 years of exciting Australian printmaking with more than 40 of Australia’s current contemporary printmakers from across the country is on show at the NGA’s newest space for art.

The opening of the show coincided with “The Known World, the sellout 8th Australian Print Symposium” at the NGA, attended by 250 people last weekend.

Conventional printmaking on paper, the gallery says, is transforming with the introduction of new media and materials such as digital prints, video, zines and textiles which are some of the many techniques on display from artists including eX de Medici, Miriam Stannage, Brook Andrew, Mike Parr, Sarah Contos, Minna Gilligan, Brent Harris and Marian Tubbs.

“NGA Contemporary is the perfect space to get up close and personal with these exceptional works,” said Elspeth Pitt, Acting Curator of Australian Prints and Drawings, “These prints explore so much more than just what the printing press offers. We see artists challenging what life is, what is important to us in contemporary culture today.”

Canberra artist, Heather B Swann has created a 25 metre long work of art that wraps the gallery windows with imagery of surreal and otherworldly creatures.

“Streetwise: contemporary print culture,” at NGA Contemporary, Queen Elizabeth Terrace on the southern foreshore of Lake Burley Griffin, The exhibition is free and runs August 7, Wednesday to Sunday.