Illustrated annuals of the 1950s and 60s are inspiration for a series of very special collaged artworks by Linus Dean, now showing at the Global Gallery in Paddington. Working within a grid format, Dean carefully arranges pieces of classic pen and ink drawings and text, creating visual chequerboards of pop culture publications from a bygone era.

Dean overlays these patchwork images with opaque or transparent painted copy that references billboards, lowbrow comics, advertising slogans and the lost art of signwriting. Linus states there is no hidden meaning to his art — that it just ‘looks cool’. He’s dead right. These are very sexy images that are luscious to look at and very collectible.

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An impressive exhibition of outstanding digital prints is now showing at the New York Hall of Science. Digital 09: Mysteries in Science explores the complexities inherent within many areas of scientific research such as biomimicry, astrophysics, nanoscience, quantum mechanics, neurobiology and biomedicine.

Superb mastery of digital technologies has enabled these twenty-one artists to engage in stunning and dynamic visual investigations, creating thoughtful interplays of energy patterns and structures including sound waves, cosmic rays, parallel universes and spiral vortexes. Each of the artists selected for the show has strived to transform the way we see and understand our universe. David Hylton’s Imagination Machine depicts the human imagination as a living entity, beautifully captured in a remarkable burst of creation.

New work by Australian artist Ricky Swallow is showcased in The Bricoleur, now showing at the Ian Potter Centre, NGV. Swallow’s work explores themes of mortality and immortality, with the inexorable passage of time a common thread that connects his sculptures and watercolour paintings. Painstakingly and beautifully forged, his sculptures poignantly record the discarded and mundane objects that may survive us, revealing their participation in the construction of our identity and illuminating the temporality of our own lives.

Transforming wood, bronze and plaster into old boots, barnacled skulls and balloons, Christo-inspired wrappings and dismembered body parts, Swallow’s work enthrals, delights and repels simultaneously — a sure sign of art that has true longevity. This major exhibition is well worth a trip to Melbourne over summer.

Sydney’s King Street Gallery is currently home to Macroscope, a collection of exquisitely crafted mixed media sculptures by Australian artist Shona Wilson. Her artworks are intricate weavings of found elements such as twigs, leaves, seeds, fish scales, insect body parts, feathers, crab claws, and seaweed.

These fragile mandalas draw inspiration from Diatoms, a microscopic sub-group of plankton. Recent research has revealed that these tiny organisms – major players in our food chain – show evidence of contamination by plastic. Hence, each of Wilson’s artworks hides within its patterns a tiny piece of beach-scavenged plastic. Wilson’s work urges all of us to consider how our species shapes the destiny of even the smallest life forms that share our planet.