Culture Watch: Eight Queensland Exhibitions to See in 2025

Whether you’re chasing moments of quiet wonder, bold political statements or playful immersion, these eight Queensland art exhibitions offer something for every kind of viewer.

From the lavish ladies-only lounge that made headlines in Hobart to a colourful celebration of the Australian father of studio pottery, Merric Boyd, this season’s line-up spans the reflective, the radical and the delightfully unexpected.

Ladies Lounge, HOTA

Opulent and tongue-in-cheek, Ladies Lounge transforms the gallery into a living installation where women are invited to luxuriate in style. Conceived by artist and Mona curator Kirsha Kaechele, this pop-up iteration features a lively program of performances, talks, poetry readings, and immersive dining experiences. There’s a slight twist this time round: men are also invited, as students of the domestic arts. It’s part of Kaechele’s reparative gesture after her highly-publicised and incredibly fun lawsuit.
From July 31 to August 10, 2025. Free

Fantastic Forms, Ipswich Art Gallery

A Bundanon touring exhibition, Fantastic Forms celebrates the creative practice of Merric Boyd, who is often referred to as the father of studio pottery. Featuring over 150 ceramics and drawings from the Bundanon Collection, the exhibition traces Boyd’s expressive visual language – rich with animals, flora, landscapes and poetic musings – and places it in conversation with contemporary works by Nabilah Nordin, Stephen Benwell and Rubyrose Bancroft. From vibrant sculpture to stop-motion animation, the show reveals the enduring influence of Boyd’s playful, deeply personal approach to his craft.
From June 14 to September 7, 2025. Free

Wonderstruck, Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA)

Find wonder in the everyday and the extraordinary at Wonderstruck, a sweeping exhibition that spans GOMA’s ground floor. Featuring more than 100 works by over 70 Australian and international artists, the exhibit blends immersive installations and quiet moments of awe. Highlights include crowd favourites like Nick Cave’s Heard, Ron Mueck ’s In bed and Yayoi Kusama’s beloved The Obliteration Room.
From June 28 to October 6, 2025. Free

New Light: Photography Now + Then, Museum of Brisbane

Step into the New Light exhibition, 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 dormant for decades in a cigar box under a house in Red Hill. The collection, comprising more than 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 October 6, 2025. Free

ENERGIES 25, HOTA

ENERGIES celebrates the creative talents of senior secondary visual art students from across the Gold Coast. A springboard for emerging artists, this annual exhibition offers a professional platform for young creatives. Previous exhibitions have featured Michael Zavros, Abbey McCulloch and Rebecca Ross,hinting at the bright futures ahead for this year’s cohort.
From September 13 to November 9, 2025. Free

WE CALL YOU! Sisters! Mothers! Workers!, UQ Art Museum

Swedish filmmaker and artist Petra Bauer’s Australian debut exhibition WE CALL YOU! Sisters! Mothers! Workers! combines films from her four-part artistic study Looking for Jeanne, which explores feminised experiences – including motherhood, domestic labour and sex work – through the lens of their political importance. It seeks to demonstrate the relationships between people in these frequently overlooked roles and how social conscience movements and organised resistance grew out of those connections.
From July 22 to December 6, 2025. Free

to come together as water, UQ Art Museum

to come together as water brings together artists from across Australia to reflect on our collective responsibility to water and Country. Curated by Freja Carmichael and grounded in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives, the exhibition draws on lived experiences to explore water as a life source, a cultural archive, and a force of connection. Through ceramics, sculpture, textiles, video and installation pieces, artists respond to the urgent realities of drought, rising sea levels and environmental change while also offering hope for the future. The exhibition asks guests one vital question: how do we protect the waters that sustain us?
From July 22 to December 6, 2025.

Under a Modern Sun, QAGOMA

A new major exhibit at QAGOMA, Under a Modern Sun, highlights the work of Queensland artists in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. The exhibit focuses on the works of artists such as William Bustard, Kenneth Macqueen and Joe Rootsey, and explores their connections to interstate luminaries like Sidney Nolan and Max Dupain. There’s a specific focus on female artists such as Vida Lahey and Daphne Mayo. The major exhibition puts the beauty of Queensland on display through skilfully crafted tableaux.
August 16, 2025 to January 25, 2026. Free

Additional reporting by Alice Volfeneuk with Lucy Bell Bird.

A previous version of this article was published on May 9, 2025. It was updated on August 4, 2025 to include new exhibitions and remove exhibitions that have since concluded.