The intriguing title of this exhibition with its clever play on "Australian" cues us in to what is an intellectually, thematically and aesthetically incisive display. The curator, Dan Toua, has selected first- and second-generation Australian artists, and "investigates the complexities of balancing the cultures of their (diverse) heritage with the culture the live in today".

Andy Mullens' poignant elegy to three generations of Vietnamese female ancestors ("Tombs for the Reborn") is a captivating introduction to the exhibition. The artist's placing of the photographs of her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother on the floor forces the viewer to look down, thus imposing an immediate respect, that universal respect for those who have passed that is integral to humanity. Mullens' other work - "Boundless plains to share" - is a fragile Australian flag made of thermal blankets. Their use is a trenchant yet conversely subtle reminder of the refugee experience. The fragility of the flag, an equally pointed reference to the "fragilities" of a new life in Australia.

Mariana del Castillo's works reinforce and demonstrate the strength of her singular aesthetic. Referencing her residence in Australia and its effects on her being "Ecuadorian", these pieces weave a personal story into a universal one. In PAUSE, the artist's aesthetic of concealment offers a magical and dream-like series of mannequins swathed in her signature grey blankets and quizzically confronting appurtenances that speak of the dilemma of a world of pandemic and disquiet.

Lara Chamas is from a Lebanese-Australian background. Ninety Nine Names is a video that uses words/titles such as The Incurable, The Patient, The Teacher, and The All Merciful, to indicate that different cultural and religious meanings elide through the intersections and overlaying that occur in everyday private and public confrontations.

Sancintya Mohini Simpson's Dhna akase mararai speaks of the diaspora of Indian indentured labourers to South Africa and thence to Australia. Using photographs and text of the sugar cane industry the artist creates a (missing) archive that subtly interrogates the colonial histories of development and growth that ignore individual histories and the lives of those whose labour kept the industry going.

Caroline Garcia's Queen of the Carabao is a video whose slow pace reinforces the emotional turmoil that accompanies a return to a country of birth. The visuals are partnered by texts that speak of cultural displacement ("threads of absence", "head-to-toe in contradiction"). The length of this work combined with its slow-motion pace, forces viewer interaction and inserts a dialogue that opens response to the artist's thematic concerns.

Shivanjani Lal's commanding 13-piece Palwaar is a visual paean to her Indo-Fijian family. Using Indian watercolour techniques allied with the use of turmeric (haldi) and a pounded wood paper (Masi), Lal expresses her ambiguous cultural identities in a beautiful and embracing way. The yellow tones produced by the turmeric gradually deepen as one moves along the 13 units, creating an evolving pictorial intensity that gives this work an impressive presence belying the subtlety of its message.

Elefteria Vlavianos's four paintings are characterised by intricate overlaid patterns that are infused into beautifully realised surfaces. The latter appear to almost pulsate through the insistent tonal presence of essentially blues and greens and the overall abstract character that is imbued in each work. Vlavianos's consummate understanding of her means and her explorations into the nature of abstraction as visualised, mark her work with a special distinction.