The riotous work of Brisbane-based artist Justene Williams will permeate the Queensland Art Gallery in a new survey exhibition opening on 3 October 2026.

The largest exhibition of the artist’s work to date, ‘Justene Williams: Once We Were Mudskippers’ explores her three-decade practice with a multi-sensory journey across sculpture, performance and video.

Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) Director Chris Saines said: ‘Justene Williams’s work is as visually spectacular as it is intellectually layered.

‘Influenced by punk, feminism and improvisation, her practice encompasses performance, sculpture, video and installation to comment on popular culture via the echoes of art history.

‘Williams draws from the visual language of Futurism, Dada, Bauhaus and avant-garde opera to subvert contemporary retail, fitness culture and digital environments to take the audience on a journey not for the faint of heart.’

The exhibition includes significant works from leading Australian public collections along with ambitious new installations, while leaning into Williams’s practice of reimagining and even cannibalising existing works to create something new.

Exhibition curator Ellie Buttrose, QAGOMA Curator of Contemporary Australian Art, said: ‘I continue to be compelled by Justene Williams’s practice for its intuitive approach, steeped in art history, that reflects on the seduction of capital and fosters a space for artistic imagination.

‘The exhibition’s title, ‘Once We Were Mudskippers’, refers to the small swamp-dwelling fish that can live on both land and in the water, pulling itself from the muddy water to skip across mudflats using its specially shaped fins as legs.

‘For Williams, the metaphor places us all in the primordial swamp together, looking for our own way out with daring adaptability. It captures the desire to escape, but also an acceptance of a sometimes-messy, swamp-dwelling life.’

A vibrantly illustrated publication will accompany the exhibition and feature an interview between the artist and curator Ellie Buttrose, alongside essays by art historian Susan Best, researcher and philosopher Stephen Zepke, and art historian and critic Victoria Perin. The exhibition will also be accompanied by a range of public programs.

Justene’s work is supported by Arts Queensland, Creative Australia, Sarazin, Griffith University's Queensland College of Art and Design, and Coldesign GRP.

‘Justene Williams: Once We Were Mudskippers’ is supported by Tourism Partner Brisbane Economic Development Agency via Brisbane City Council and Supporting Partners Allpress and Dulux.

The exhibition is in the Kenneth and Yasuko Myer Gallery and Gallery 4 at the Queensland Art Gallery from 3 October 2026 until 7 March 2027. Entry is free.

About Justene Williams

Justene Williams was born in 1970 in Sydney and currently lives and works in Brisbane. She is Senior Lecturer (Sculpture) at Queensland College of Art and Design, Griffith University in Brisbane.

Recent exhibitions by the artist include ‘Justene Williams: Making Do Rhymes With Poo’, Te Uru, Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, Auckland, 2024; ‘Justene Williams: Victory over the sun’, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2022; ‘Justene Williams: Santa was a Psychopomp’, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, 2019; ‘BAUHAUS NOW!’ with Mikala Dwyer, Buxton Contemporary, Melbourne, 2019; ‘Justene Williams: VOS Vignettes’, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2019; and ‘Justene Williams: The Curtain Breathed Deeply’, Artspace, Sydney, Monash University Art Museum, Melbourne, and touring nationally, 2015. Williams participated in ‘Embodied Knowledge’, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2022; ‘The National: New Australian Art’, Carriageworks, 2017; ‘Biennale of Sydney’, Cockatoo Island, 2016; and ‘PERFORMA 15: Pavilion Without Walls’, New York, 2015.

Artworks by Justene Williams are held in major collections including: Artbank, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Chartwell Collection Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Home of the Arts, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, and Tate. Significant public artworks include Sheila, a commission for Brisbane’s Queen’s Wharf, and Boccioni Babe, commissioned for the opening of Naala Badu at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Justene Williams is represented by The Commercial Sydney and Anna Schwartz Projects Melbourne.

ENDS