Canberra’s art galleries are coming back to life in full force as the week’s events show, writes “Artsday” columnist HELEN MUSA.

AARWUN Gallery is staging a slap-up dinner night to celebrate the arts of noted landscape painter Ted Lewis, who will converse with Richard Morecroft. He’s here to run  a two-day weekend master class. 11 Federation Square, O’Hanlon Pl, Nicholls, 6.30pm, Friday May 20, inquiries and bookings to 6230 2055.

BELCONNEN Arts Centre has no fewer than four shows opening at 6pm on Friday, May 20 and running until July 3: “Upending  Mending”,  the University of Canberra’s Faculty of Arts and Design annual exhibition; “Entwined”, ceramics by Vivien Lightfoot with drawings and prints by Jenny Manning; “Vessel” by ceramic artists of the Canberra region; and  “Circles of Nature”,  works by members of the Fibre Basket Makers of the ACT.

THE ANU School of Art and Design’s show “New Alumni” showcases the works of 30 artists. Head of the School of Art and Design Beck Davis says: “It is incredibly important that our graduates have this opportunity to hang an exhibition and to make their work publicly available, the impact of the last two years cannot be underestimated”. At the school’s gallery on Ellery Crescent, Acton, until July 1.

“HEART of Country Core” works come from a remarkable private collection of bark paintings assembled by Donna-Marie Kelly and her partner Andrew Dyer, featuring some of the finest painters of Yirrkala, Ramingining and Maningrida, augmented by a selection of bark paintings from the ANU collections. At the ANU Drill Hall Gallery until June 12.

AMBUSH Gallery on the ANU campus now has a showcase of contemporary works created by over 20 First Nations artists around Australia in “While You Were Sleeping Volume 2″.

ANU Choral Society   performs Mozart’s  “Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Requiem, ” conducted by Matthew Stuckings, at Wesley Uniting Church, Forrest, on Friday, May 20.