Performance, concerts and gallery news pepper HELEN MUSA’s latest Artsweek column that rounds up what’s what and where in the Canberra arts scene. 

Ralph Heimans: Portraiture. Power. Influence is the first major exhibition of this famous artist’s work in his home country.

The exhibition will feature some of the most significant portraits in Heimans’ career, from early major works such as his painting of Queen Mary of Denmark through to his most recent paintings and will offer a behind-the-curtain peek into the lives of sitters, including King Charles III, Dame Judi Dench and Dame Quentin Bryce. National Portrait Gallery, March 15-May 27.

Stage

• The 2024 Canberra Comedy Festival plays until March 24. 
• Stunt Double is an action-packed dance-theatre work by physical theatre collaborators, The Farm. The show transforms a section of the audience into extras and stagehands. The Playhouse, March 14-16.
• Eulogiser Bunny is a new Q The Locals show by Kamilaroi comedian and 2022 Deadly Funny finalist, Cameron Ribbons. The Q, Queanbeyan, March 16.

Concerts

• Canberra’s Greek-jazz fusion band, Kavos, launches its second album, Athina, inspired by Athenian locations and seeking to capture their urban groove. Smith’s Alternative, March 14.
• Canberra Bach Ensemble’s 300th-anniversary performance of Bach’s St John Passion BWV 245 will be at St Christopher’s Cathedral, Manuka, March 16-17. The work was first performed on Good Friday, April 7, 1724, in Leipzig’s St Nicholas’ Church.

Galleries

• Materiality… But Not as We Know It  features 10 Australian artists with close connections to Canberra. At Canberra Museum and Gallery, until October 20.
• The National Gallery’s most requested work, The Rajah Quilt, is on show until August 25. Made from around 3000 pieces in 400 different fabrics, the quilt was hand stitched by women prisoners on The Rajah, a British convict ship bound for Australia in 1841. 
• Sierra Leonean-Australian sculptor Rosalind Lemoh has been delving into the history of the Kingston Powerhouse to uncover “things hidden or unsaid”. The result is a solo show, Told. Retold. Untold, at the Glassworks, Kingston, until April 28.
• Within Reach is a solo exhibition of new wood carvings by local artist Isobel Rayson. At Suki & Hugh Gallery, Bungendore. Opening drinks with the artist, March 16.
• An EASS Award exhibition, Body, Space and Place by four recent graduates from the ANU School of Art & Design,  draws upon memory and identity, presence and absence. ANCA Gallery, Dickson, March 13-28.
• Monachopsis, by Canberra photographer Hilary Wardhaugh, seeks to depict the tension between human influence on nature and nature’s resilience. Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Manuka, March 15-24.
• PhotoAccess Griffith has two new exhibitions: Volver (The Return) by Judith Martinez Estrada, and Poison Berries by Janhavi Sharma. March 15-April 27.