Kids & Families/ Holiday fun with our animal art trail!

Thu 12 Jun 2025

Ignite a child's natural curiosity these school holidays. Discover a wonderful menagerie of animals, some easy to spot; others waiting to be found. Did you know there's a shark living in the art gallery? Find our playful pigs, go bird watching, or keep an eye out for a pack of polar bears!

From the earliest paintings to today's contemporary works, animals have featured in art. Go on an animal art trail with us at the Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) and Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA).

Both our buildings are nestled beside the Brisbane River and are just a short stroll from each other, we're also close to South Bank Parklands to extend your day even further.

Watch out for the shark!

Start your animal trail

In this selection of animals — from the two-legged, the four-legged, to the many legged kind — you'll find QAGOMA has them all in painting, sculpture, jewellery, and decorative objects. How many more can you find?

Queensland Art Gallery

Find two mice who love art

Roy and Matilda are two mice who love art galleries. When visiting one day, they set about making a cosy home. A man who worked in the Galley restoring and carving frames found they were living here and decided to make them a special monogrammed front door. See if the're home when you visit.
Location: Gallery 11. Australian Art Collection, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Galleries, Queensland Art Gallery

Fifteen dancing brolgas... can you count them all?

Brolgas are known for their intricate dance and trumpeting sound. This painting shows people and birds united by music.
Nearby: Find the Australian Kelpie and the shark.
Location: Gallery 11. Australian Art Collection, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Galleries, Queensland Art Gallery

Find the restful Australian Kelpie

Locate our celestial shark

Spot our white dove

Birds regularly appear in paintings. As a child this artist was a frequent visitor to Sydney’s Taronga Park Zoo and developed a lifelong love of animals and the natural world.
Location: Gallery 12. Australian Art Collection, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Galleries, Queensland Art Gallery

Can you locate all the camel pieces?

This work is playful and witty, the segmented 'Jumble Animals' take inspiration from the back of Kellogg’s breakfast cereal boxes which were designed to be cut out and reassembled by children, like a jigsaw. In this version, it's a little harder as you have to piece it together in your mind.
Location: Gallery 13. Australian Art Collection, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Galleries, Queensland Art Gallery

Pick out the four goannas

This painting is from one of the traditional Indigenous Australian dreaming stories, and this work shows four goanna's moving towards a waterhole. The work has a strong sense of symmetry, one half is a mirror image of the other.
Location: Gallery 13. Australian Art Collection, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Galleries, Queensland Art Gallery

Go bird watching

Head back down the Gallery on the way to the International Art Collection and find all the native animals carved into the sideboard, then drop by our Red-tailed Black Cockatoos.
Location: Gallery 10. Australian Art Collection, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Galleries, Queensland Art Gallery

Search for all the birds, we count 10

This screen of birds depicts change by including all four seasons within a singular landscape — from a snowy winter scene to the blooms of spring. How many birds can you find?
Nearby: Find a little green caterpiller
Location: Gallery 7. International Art Collection, Philip Bacon Galleries, Queensland Art Gallery

Track down the green caterpillar

Watch out for the flying dragonfly

The shapes and rhythms of nature inspired the style Art Nouveau. Find our collection of glass vases featuring delicately frosted animal and insects; and jewellery that take the form of a dragonfly brooch, and a comb featuring a ladybird sitting on a leaf.
Location: Gallery 7. International Art Collection, Philip Bacon Galleries, Queensland Art Gallery.

Find the lucky ladybird beetle

Discover four pigs relaxing at home

This is definitely one of the cutest little homes you will see, substituting animals for people, with one relaxing on a couch, the others playing ball in the backyard swimming pool. Look closely at all the details from the heart shaped cushions to the white swan, green frog, and garden gnome.
Nearby: Check out the housebound tortoise who appears to carry the weight of the world on his back; the sleeping baby being cared for by a tree full of animals; and the squad of ten pink roaming polar bears.
Location: Pelican Lounge. Queensland Art Gallery

Find our housebound tortoise

How many animals can you see in the tree?

Discover our squad of pink polar bears

Visit our local water dragons

The Gallery’s Watermall extends far beyond the Gallery’s interior, past the Dandelion fountains through to the reflection pond and Sculpture Courtyard. Visit the adjoining QAG Cafe and keep an eye out for our resident water dragons, Australia’s largest dragon lizard. Native to eastern Australia, they have a life span of around 20 years, though they can grow up to a metre in length, thankfully our contented residents aren’t that big. They are especially adapted to an aquatic life, and if you’re lucky you can watch them dive into the pond from the overhanging Tipuana tree and swim off using their powerful long tail.
Location: QAG Cafe. Watermall, Queensland Art Gallery

Gallery of Modern Art

Find a couple of pink galahs

In the sweeping plains and red-hued rolling ranges of the Central Desert in Northern Territory lies Ntaria (Hermannsburg). Here, a dedicated group of artists have pioneered pottery that has a distinctive style of hand-coiled clay vessels, often adorned with animals and matching sculptural lids.
Location: Entrance Foyer. Gallery of Modern Art

Beware of the puffed-up frill-necked lizard

Look for Kuril

Down by the river in front of GOMA, can you find the kuril, a small native water rat, which forms part of this sculpture. In Aboriginal culture the kuril is an important animal who takes care of this area, the land where the Gallery stands. Kuril is a hero who, although small, has turned the world on its side. The world is represented by a giant elephant, can you see that it also looks like a book end?
Location: GOMA Bistro Lawn, Riverside. Gallery of Modern Art

Make a day of your visit

Visit the Children's Art Centre at GOMA to experience a range of free activities created in collaboration with local and international artists, children can explore their creativity through these making and multimedia interactives. Keep the fun going after your visit with our free online games or download the activities for all the family to join in.

Children's Art Centre (CAC)

Spend time at ‘Art Box for Kids: Mandy Quadrio’ to create a unique paper carrier to hold treasured objects. Watch the artist's behind-the-scenes video and visit until 26 October 2025.
Location: Entrance level. Gallery of Modern Art.

Until 13 July 2025, downstairs at GOMA you will find a collection of artist projects. Children can explore their creativity and reflect on the experiences of others through drawing and video works by artists from India, Aotearoa New Zealand, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia / Palestine, Cambodia and Timor-Leste.
Location: Park level. Gallery of Modern Art.

'Out of the Box' pop up

On Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 June 2025, in partnership with Out of the Box Festival, visit 'Moments of Wonder', a family friendly drop-in workshop where children are invited to consider a significant moment of wonder in their life, before creating a picture with coloured pencils and watercolour paint. Selected drawings created during the workshop will be displayed in the 'Wonderstruck' exhibition from 28 June until 6 October 2025.
Location: Bodhi Tree Terrace. Gallery of Modern Art

Watch | Mandy Quadrio invites you to create your own unique paper carrier

Games, drawing & making activities

Learn, play and explore with the Children's Art Centre's range of online games and activities.

We invite you to create your own musical composition. When Etson Caminha was a child, making music using recycled materials was a source of happiness and fun. Today, he creates sound-based artworks using natural elements, Timorese instruments and electronic equipment. In this interactive, experiment with music composition by selecting and layering pre-recorded videos.
Play 'My kitchen sounds'

Childrens books & gifts

While you’re here, why not pop-in to one of the three QAGOMA Stores packed with inspiring books, stylish accessories, designer homewares and cultural curios to take home. There’s something here for everyone, with a unique selection of books and gifts especially for children.

Eat & drink

If you work up an appetite on your visit, enjoy a bite to eat at one of our child friendly cafes. Just the treat for children: Chicken Tenders, Shoestring Fries, or Mini Fish Tacos, Mini Cheeseburger Slider, Mini Haloumi Slider at GOMA or try the Neapolitan Pizza at QAG, or select from a range of sandwiches and pastries.

Information for families

Cloak rooms
Cloak rooms are at the entries to both QAG and GOMA. You can keep bags containing care needs for your family, baby carriers being used to carry a child, or baby bags securely attached to a pram or carried.

Parents’ rooms
There are two parents’ rooms at QAG, one near the Stanley Place entrance and one near the Pelican Lounge, both on the Watermall level, there is also a parents’ room at GOMA, in the Cinema Foyer.

Prams
Prams are welcome, and all areas of QAG and GOMA are accessible by lift or ramp. Pram parking is available near the entrance to the Children's Art Centre at GOMA.

Two neighbouring galleries

Our two galleries, only 150 metres apart, are a short walk from the city centre and adjacent to South Bank Parklands. QAG's riverfront entry is near Melbourne St and Victoria Bridge, and both buildings have an entrance from Stanley Place.

Parking for the Cultural Precinct is available in two carparks under QAG and State Library of Queensland, both accessible via Stanley Place.

QAGOMA is right next to the Cultural Centre Busway station and a short walk from the South Brisbane train station and the South Bank CityCat and Ferry terminal.

Visit QAGOMA daily: Open 10.00 am – 5.00 pm
Open from 12 noon Anzac Day. Closed Good Friday, Christmas Day & Boxing Day

We look forward to welcoming you. Enjoy your visit!

Queensland Art Gallery

Gallery of Modern Art

Elliott Murray is Senior Digital Marketing Officer, QAGOMA