QAGOMA is home to more than 20 000 artworks from Australia and around the world, in every imaginable medium. The Collection is a cultural record shaped by the Gallery’s history and an expression of its aspirations to connect people with the enduring power of art and creativity.
The Gallery’s globally significant collection of contemporary art from Australia, Asia and the Pacific has been developed over more than 30 years as part of the research and relationships built through The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art.
Each work that enters the Collection is considered for how it might contribute to conversations between works, and enrich the visitor experience.
Artistic expressions from the world's oldest continuing culture are drawn from all regions of the country in the Gallery's holdings of Indigenous Australian artworks, especially the rich diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and experiences in Queensland.
The work of Australian artists has been collected by the Gallery since its foundation in 1895. These works date from the colonial period onwards, with rich holdings of paintings and sculptures by Australian expatriate artists living in the United Kingdom and France at the turn of the twentieth century. The Australian art collection tracks developments in the modern movement of the 1950s and 1960s, including abstractions and assemblages and conceptual/post-object art of the late 1960s and 1970s.
QAGOMA’s Contemporary Asian art collection is among the most extensive of its kind in the world, comprising over 1000 works from the late 1960s to the present which shed light on modern historical developments, current environments of social change and evolving models of artistic production. Our contemporary Asian holdings have been shaped by the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art since 1993, reflecting the diversity of art-making contexts in the region and including major new commissioned works.
The Gallery's collection of contemporary Pacific art is the broadest in Australia. With the establishment of the Asia Pacific Triennial (APT) in the early 1990s, the Gallery recognised the importance of actively developing the Pacific collection.
The Gallery's collection of works from Europe, Africa and North and South America includes early European paintings and works on paper, with an emphasis on the Northern Renaissance; British art from the late-18th to late-19th century, including Victorian and Edwardian painting; and modern European and American painting, sculpture, photography and prints from the late 19th century to the second half of the twentieth century.
R. Godfrey Rivers, England/Australia 1858-1925 / Under the jacaranda 1903 / Oil on canvas / 143.4 x 107.2 cm / Purchased 1903 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / View full image
Artists & Artworks
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Find out more about the work of our conservation specialists, the depth of our Asia Pacific research, or explore the extensive collection of art resources in our Research Library.
The Australian Centre of Asia Pacific Art (ACAPA) examines the artists and artwork of QAGOMA's focus region and holds an extensive and ever-growing Asia Pacific resource archive in our Library.
QAGOMA's Research Library has an extensive collection of art resources that can be enjoyed by visitors to the Gallery. We hold over 50 000 books and exhibition catalogues and close to 250 current journal titles.
Over countless generations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people developed an intricate understanding of their Country’s unique environments and ideal ecological balance. Intertwined with cultural knowledge and ceremonial practice, this insight is embedded into societal systems, wherein totemic relationships of responsibility to flora and fauna ensure ongoing land management and sustainability.
‘Crafted from Country’ is the second of four blogs that celebrate the interconnected relationships between plants, people and Country in the exhibition ‘Seeds and Sovereignty’ at the Gallery of Modern Art until 18 August 2024.
Crafted from Country
Kin-centric or totemic relationships of responsibility to plants weave theology and ecology throughout all aspects of life, expressed in ritual and ceremony, as well as harvesting and food preparation. Artists from around the country demonstrate these connections through stunning works that highlight the functional and ritual uses of botanical resources.
Mitjili Napurrula ‘Uwalki’ 2002
Mitjili Napurrula’s Uwalki 2002 (illustrated) imparts Dreaming stories of spear-making trees alongside Elizabeth Djuttara’s Wanydjalpi (Yam sculpture) 2004 (illustrated) and Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s Yam Dreaming paintings of 1995 (illustrated), which honour an integral food source across many regions of the country.
Elizabeth Djuttara ‘Wanydjalpi (Yam sculpture)’ 2004
Emily Kame Kngwarreye ‘Yam dreaming’ 1995
An array of Banumbirr (Morning Star poles) (Malu Gurruwiwi’s Banumbirr (Morning Star pole) 1998 illustrated) join these works in their celebration of this plant. Central to rituals of cosmological and ecological importance celebrated annually in eastern Arnhem Land these highly decorated feathered poles are emblematic of the yam, the stringed adornments signifying the mother vine with its leaves and tendrils.
Malu Gurruwiwi ‘Banumbirr (Morning Star pole)’ 1998
Sophia Nampitjimpa Sambono (Jingili) is Associate Curator, Indigenous Australian Art, QAGOMA
This text is adapted from an essay first published in QAGOMA’s Members’ magazine, Artlines
‘Seeds and Sovereignty’ / Gallery 3.5, Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) / 2 March – 18 August 2024
The Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Gallery stands in Brisbane. We pay respect to Aboriginal peoples, Torres Strait Islander peoples, and Elders past and present. In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge the immense creative contribution First Australians, as the first visual artists and storytellers, make to the art and culture of this country.
‘Seeds and Sovereignty’ at the Gallery of Modern Art until 18 August 2024, brings together works from the QAGOMA Indigenous Australian Art Collection that celebrate the interconnected relationships between plants, people and Country. The lessons embedded in cultural knowledge systems contain critical information about the collection and use of natural resources, ensuring safe consumption and plentiful harvests.
Over countless generations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples developed an intricate understanding of their Country’s unique environments and ideal ecological balance. Intertwined within cultural knowledge and ceremonial practice, this insight into nature is embedded into societal systems wherein totemic relationships of responsibility to flora and fauna ensure ongoing land management and sustainability.
‘Seeds and Sovereignty’ is curatorially responsive and seeks to honour the ground-breaking research of historian and author Bruce Pascoe’s widely acclaimed publication Dark Emu (2014, Magabala Books). Pascoe’s work, and others that followed him, have successfully challenged accepted histories around the pre-colonial lifestyles of Indigenous people in ways that recognise these sophisticated land management practices while reaffirming the sacred obligations of custodianship that underpins their success.
‘Mapping Country’ is the first of four blogs that celebrate the interconnected relationships between plants, people and Country.
Mapping Country
The establishment of missions and settlements throughout Australia ruptured many traditional ecological systems. However, even when displaced from their homelands, obligations to land and ongoing sustainability remain imperative for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Artists commonly use their work to express connection to and authority over their Country. Such depictions can be literal, codified, or even metaphysical maps of Country, featuring significant plants that represent abundance or the location of botanical resources.
Alec Baker ‘Ngura (Country)’ 2018
Betty Chimney ‘Ngayuku Ngura (My Country)’ 2018
Alec Baker’s Ngura (Country) 2018 (illustrated) and Betty Chimney’s Ngayuku Ngura (My Country) 2018 (illustrated) employ classic Western Desert topographical mapping design embedded with ancestral stories, significant sites, iconography and landmarks, including plants. Janet Koongotema’s celebratory depiction of Waangk Awa’ 2021 (illustrated) asserts her tribal rights to the ngench thayan (sacred) Wik-Mungkan ‘story place’ of her Dilly Bag Dreaming.
Janet Koongotema ‘Waangk Awa” 2021
Wathaurung artist Carol McGregor’s Skin Country 2018 (illustrated) maps the locations of native flora of the greater Brisbane region in relation to the Brisbane River, as it snakes towards the coastline. The botanical illustrations reflect extensive consultation with Elders, community members and historians in their placement; whereas Utopia artists Poly, Angelina and Kathleen Ngal express their deep cultural knowledge of Country in abstract imagery typical of the region. Each artist’s intricate dot work shimmers across the canvas, increasing in density or vibrancy in places that represent places of abundance of food resources, or sites of ceremonial, ancestral or other cultural significance.
Carol Mcgregor ‘Skin Country’ 2018
Sophia Nampitjimpa Sambono ( Jingili) is Associate Curator, Indigenous Australian Art, QAGOMA
This text is adapted from an essay first published in QAGOMA’s Members’ magazine, Artlines.
‘Seeds and Sovereignty’ / Gallery 3.5, Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) / 2 March – 18 August 2024.
The Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Gallery stands in Brisbane. We pay respect to Aboriginal peoples, Torres Strait Islander peoples, and Elders past and present. In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge the immense creative contribution First Australians, as the first visual artists and storytellers, make to the art and culture of this country.