Art Wrap: Eight Exhibitions To See in and Around Brisbane This Year

Whether you’re looking to reflect, slow down or learn something new, these eight exhibits in and around Brisbane are just the ticket. Among them is a multidisciplinary showcase on environmental destruction, a Mark Rothko and Agnes Martin homage, and an archive of decades-old Brisbane photographs.

Arriving Slowly, Ipswich Art Gallery

At IAG this summer, D Harding, Lindy Lee, Ross Manning and seventeen other artists have responded to the prolific oeuvre of Mark Rothko and Agnes Martin with their own interpretations of abstraction. The show is curated to challenge monolithic ideas of art movements in an intimate, self-guided way and encourages the viewer to engage without haste. The clinical environment of the gallery, combined with the stillness of abstract art, encourages you to stop in front of each piece to appreciate it and reflect.
Until February 16, 2025. Free

Deep Blue, Pine Rivers Art Gallery

The work of mother-daughter artists Sonja and Elisa Jane Carmichael seeks to revive Quandamooka cultural practices. Deep Blue, a large-scale series of photograms, is the pair’s second exhibition together. It focuses on wellbeing, the transformative power of art to strengthen familial bonds, and cultural belonging. The cyanotype prints inspired by the ocean can be made more immersive through the “sensory tour”, which amplifies the art through sound and smells of the seaside.
Until February 22, 2025. Free

Leah King-Smith: rhythm wRites, QUT Art Museum

rhythm wRites is a multidisciplinary show that pairs up First Nations artists from various mediums (artists, musicians and writers) to create innovative works. Robert Andrew, Nici Cumpston, Keely Eggmolesse and Ellen van Neerven come together to bring to life Bigambul artist and academic Leah King-Smith’s audiovisual installations. Their pieces unpack rhythm, ethereality, spatiality and sound through a decolonising framework. King-Smith’s multidimensional photographic layering techniques aim to inspire a sense of peaceful reflection.
Until March 9, 2025. Free

Yuriyal Bridgeman: yubilong(mi) bilongyu, Griffith University Art Museum

Since 2008, Papua New Guinean artist Yuriyal Bridgeman has combined photography, video, painting and sculpture to tell stories of his tribe, ancestry and cultural ritual. Yuriyal Bridgeman: yubilong(mi)bilongyu is the result of his recent research into the cultural leadership practices and traditions of the Yuri Alaiku men. Bridgeman’s distinctive bright palette and geometrical lines are continued in this exhibition and in his first ever accompanying monograph – a physical archive of works from Bridgeman and his family.
Until March 15, 2025. Free

The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, GOMA

Was travel a New Year’s resolution? This year’s triennial can take you to more than 30 countries without a plane ticket. For the first time in the exhibition’s history, artists from Saudi Arabia, Timor-Leste and Uzbekistan are taking part – though the heart of the exhibit continues to be local First Nations, minority and diaspora cultures and artists. The expansive project brings together myriad artists and collectives – all exploring lived experiences from their corner of the world. Pieces examine how artists care for natural and urban environments; the importance of preserving and reviving cultural heritage in communities and intergenerationally; and how the histories of migration, colonisation and labour impact identity and lived experience.
Until April 27, 2025. Free

These Entanglements: Ecology After Nature, UQ Art Museum

Sixteen artists, two questions: how have humans managed to infiltrate every existing environment – and is there a way back? This inquiry frames the show’s works of choreography, sculptural installation, filmmaking, field research, tarot reading, photography, painting and virtual simulation. For some, this destruction takes shape through vibrant imagery and dreamlike textures, while for others it’s communicated through the movements and gestures of a performance.
From February 18, 2025 – June 14, 2025. Free

New Light: Photography Now + Then, Museum of Brisbane

Step into the New Light, where photography from 1890 to 2024 bridges Brisbane’s past and present. At its heart is Alfred Henrie Elliott’s archive, which was rediscovered after lying for decades in a cigar box under a house in Red Hill. The collection, comprising over 400 negatives and prints, appears alongside works from seven contemporary photographers, including Carl Warner and Marian Drew, who are all responding to Elliott’s work, offering fresh perspectives on history, place and the art of photography.
Until July 13, 2025. Free

A Bigger View, Hota

Explore a selection of monumental landscape works from the National Gallery of Australia in this large-scale exhibition. Take in David Hockney’s A Bigger Grand Canyon and Imants Tillers’s Mount Analogue, alongside pieces by other revered figures such as Bridget Riley and Australians Sally Gabori and William Robinson. This Gold Coast show presents diverse approaches to landscape painting, offering a fresh perspective on the cornerstone genre that has shaped Australian art history.
Until June 21, 2026. Ticketed