The 60th Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition opened on the weekend, with the major project by Queensland artist Archie Moore and QAGOMA curator Ellie Buttrose awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. The first work by an Australian artist to receive the prestigious accolade, Moore’s kith and kin was acknowledged by the jury ‘for its strong aesthetic, its lyricism and its invocation of a shared loss of an occluded past. The artwork, in Venice’s Australia Pavilion, immerses the viewer in personal and universal stories that situate Australia’s short two-and-a-half centuri ..read more

Betty Quelhurst (17 September 1919-2008) was born at Laidley, a rural town in the Lockyer Valley Region near Brisbane. Her commitment to art with her career spanning several decades was a significant presence to the art scene in Queensland, including her contribution as a teacher, and her generous philanthropy. Focusing on recording life in Brisbane and the Gold Coast, Quelhurst mentioned about her work Palms, Anzac Square 1961 (illustrated): “When I was in Europe I was quite fascinated by the square, every city has a square, and when I came back I found that Brisbane had a square; Anzac Squar ..read more

QAGOMA conservator Michael Marendy gives us an insight into Eiko Ishioka‘s exquisitely designed costumes made for the film Mirror Mirror (2012). The ‘Cream wedding dress’ costume (illustrated) worn by Julia Roberts as ‘Queen Clementianna’ is made from 70 metres of Duchess Silk Satin creating a multitude of overlapping petals and vine tendrils from bodice to skirt, and because it’s so large and heavy, required a remake of both the hoop petticoat and the soft covering before it could go on display in ‘Fairy Tales’. Here we take you behind-the-scenes to show you the preparation required to displa ..read more

Embracing new visual vocabularies to better express their distinct viewpoints, many notable Australian artists broke from tradition in the 1920s and 1930s and turned to Modernism. At this time, these artists immersed themselves in geometric concepts of space and volume, rhythm and repetition, as well as illusion and flatness. On display within the Queensland Art Gallery’s Australian Art Collection, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Galleries (10-13) are works by Grace Cossington Smith, Roland Wakelin, Rah Fizelle, Ralph Balson, Grace Crowley and Godfrey Miller. Grace Cossington Smith (20 April ..read more

Consisting of 30 squared-off tree trunks elaborately carved with a chainsaw and arranged in an orderly open grid, Shigeo Toya’s Woods III 1991–92 (illustrated) on display at the Queensland Art Gallery until 27 January 2025 is celebrated for its formal beauty as well as its poetic and philosophical allusions. For Toya, the recesses and crevices created by his chainsaw laid bare the internal material qualities of the wood. The act of carving is an inscription — evidence of the artist’s intervention through mark-making, and an excavation — removing accumulated layers to reveal what they might con ..read more

On display within the Queensland Art Gallery’s International Art Collection, Philip Bacon Galleries (7- 9), the elegant contours of Paul Gauguin’s sculpture Madame Schuffenecker c.1890 (illustrated) reflect the simplified design that is so distinctive in his painting, and which was to become increasingly influential on the work of painters such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. The subject is the wife of Gauguin’s lifelong friend and fellow artist Claude-Emile Schuffenecker, Gauguin frequently used their home in Paris as a base, and Claude-Emile often assisted Gauguin both on a personal and ..read more

In this large-scale painting moreton bay rivers, australian temperature chart, freshwater mussels, net, spectrogram 2022 (illustrated) on display within ‘mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri‘ (tomorrow the tree grows stronger) at the Queensland Art Gallery until 11 August 2024, Judy Watson surveys the rising tide of climate change by representing a bird’s-eye view of Queensland’s Moreton Bay and its rivers, overlaid with a chart of Australia’s average air and water temperatures recorded between 1910 and 2019. Queensland Art Gallery Watermall Judy Watson, Waanyi people, Australia b.1959 / more ..read more

Consisting of 30 squared-off tree trunks elaborately carved with a chainsaw and arranged in an orderly open grid, Shigeo Toya’s Woods III 1991–92 (illustrated) on display at the Queensland Art Gallery until 27 January 2025 is celebrated for its formal beauty as well as its poetic and philosophical allusions. For Toya, the recesses and crevices created by his chainsaw laid bare the internal material qualities of the wood. The act of carving is an inscription — evidence of the artist’s intervention through mark-making, and an excavation — removing accumulated layers to reveal what they might con ..read more

We take you on a journey of discovery beneath the paint surface of The Blue Alice 1956-57, uncover previously hidden details, and look at the technique and materials used by Charles Blackman. The Blue Alice is currently on display in the ‘Fairy Tales’ exhibition at Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) until 28 April 2024. ‘Fairy Tales’ unfolds across three themed chapters. ‘Into the Woods’ explores the conventions and characters of traditional fairy tales alongside their contemporary retellings. ‘Through the Looking Glass’ brings together art, film and design that embrace exploratory storie ..read more

Transformation is an essential element in the fairy tale tradition. A change of appearance can signal or conceal a character’s true identity. While some characters alter their own appearance to escape or trick others, many are victims — transfigured as punishment. The spells that trigger these transformations are, in many cases, broken by a character’s moral redemption, or the compassion of another who sees beyond their altered appearance. Talk | 10.30am Sunday 14 April The story of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ has captured imaginations for millennia. Free at the Australian Cinémathèque, Gallery of ..read more