Spanning both the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), the artists in ‘The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ consider knowledge and tradition in its many forms while developing their own approach to storytelling. They do this by creating their own unique and innovative style.
With so many works on display — more than 500 by 200 individuals — we look closely at five artworks to unravel the stories, uncover their deeper meaning, and look closely at the detail.
Wardha Shabbir
Along with its role as a centre for miniature painting, the city of Lahore itself has shaped Wardha Shabbir’s practice over many years. Trained in this highly disciplined genre, she continues to draw on its conventions while creating works that experiment formally and conceptually beyond the framework of miniature painting. She carefully documents the city’s common trees, natural vegetation, and gardens where nature is subdued and curated, and is drawn to Lahore’s sharp yellow light, which she uses in her paintings alongside other distinctive tones.
In Paths to Portals 2024 (illustrated & detail), fences stand as metaphors for the boundaries affecting women’s lives. The wild shrubbery reflects the struggles women face, and pathways reference the Islamic concept of ‘sirat’ to reflect the artist’s own journey as a woman living in Pakistan. Shabbir is also drawn to the mysterious energy and amoeba-like forms of black holes found throughout the universe, and the way they create a veil surrounded by radiating or burning edges.
Muhlis Lugis
Printmaker Muhlis Lugis’s large-scale woodcuts explore his cultural heritage by reflecting and recontextualising aspects of Bugis customs, philosophy and mythology. Grounded in the teachings and culture of the Bugis community of South Sulawesi, his meticulous compositions reaffirm the significance of cultural practice and identity amid the ever-changing landscape of Indonesian society.
For the Asia Pacific Triennial, Lugis presents a series of traditional ancestral stories from a contemporary Bugis perspective. Throughout his 'Sangiang Serri (Goddess of Rice)' series of works, Lugis illustrates significant events and rituals dedicated to the rice goddess detailed in the influential epic Bugis narrative La Galigo.
Sangiang Serri (Entertaining the Sangiang Serri) 2021 (illustrated & detail) portrays the Buginese Mappadendang ritual, a joyful performance of gratitude for abundant harvests. An important expression of cultural identity, the ceremony consists of beating a lesung (mortar) and alu (pestle) in dendang (rhythm) to produce a beat pleasing to the goddess, which forms the musical accompaniment to the Padendang dancers. The observance of Mappadendang is a significant community gathering of unity and cultural celebration
Varunika Saraf
Varunika Saraf references a range of historical worldviews, mythologies and art histories as a means to navigate today’s political and social situations. Her works examine contemporary realities of marginalisation, social injustice and proliferating violence, particularly in response to recent events in India.
The process of making her own colours is an important part of Saraf’s works. She creates pigments and develops watercolours from specially sourced materials, meticulously crafting colours that reflect her feeling towards the subject she paints.
Thieves in the forest 2024 (illustrated & detail) sees Saraf focus her attention on the threat of environmental extraction, alluding to broader issues of politicised violence and social complacency. The painting captures a lush forest inhabited by creatures, spirits and mythological figures. Armed officers, land surveyors, flag bearers and gangs carrying political placards encroach on the perimeter of the forest, threatening anything in their way. Saraf seeks to uncover the social and political systems that perpetuate violence toward nature, and the cultural damage that occurs in their wake.
William Bakalevu
William Bakalevu discovered his passion for painting at 37 years of age, after relocating from Fiji’s Suva city to his ancestral village of Nakorolevu. Inspired by local history and daily life, Bakalevu began creating domestic murals to visually document village stories. This endeavour marked the beginning of his lifelong dedication to retelling local legends and proverbs through art. Bakalevu has continued to refine his innovative use of texture and vibrant hues to recontextualise Fijian legends, blending narrative and emotion through new symbols and techniques.
For the Asia Pacific Triennial, a collection of Bakalevu’s works is on display which spans the past decade of his practice and highlights his distinctive style. Viavia 2024 (translating to Wannabe) (illustrated & detail), explores the Fijian proverb ‘Eda Ika kecega, is eda dui nubunubu’, which likens people to fish dwelling at different depths. In this piece, Bakalevu reflects on his unique artistic journey, acknowledging his desire to explore new directions while remaining deeply rooted in his cultural heritage.
Rithika Merchant
Rithika Merchant’s ethereal worlds are born from her consideration of how narratives, myths and ideas resonate across different peoples, cultures and religions, and how these shared stories inform our imaginings of the future. Her illustrations speculate on what might happen as the world becomes less habitable for humans, and what new worlds, creatures and relationships might then evolve. The artist’s fantastical worlds are inhabited by curious beings, whose evolution, values, beliefs and technologies Merchant carefully develops.
For the Asia Pacific Triennial, Merchant’s most recent series ‘Terraformation’ with Temporal Structures 2023 (illustrated & detail) follows her beings as they leave their planet and begin terraforming their new homes — that is, shaping new planets to be more habitable. Drawing on scientific, fictitious and mythological ideas, each work in the series acts as a proposition for sustaining life in a new world.
Edited extracts from the publication The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, 2024
Art that needs a closer look
Asia Pacific Triennial
30 November 2024 – 27 April 2025
Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA)
Brisbane, Australia
Free entry
If you’re a local or visiting Brisbane, whether you have a spare 30 minutes to drop in for a dose of art at either of our neighbouring buildings — the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art — or a leisurely 3 hours to wander both sites, here are some suggestions to make the most of your visit.
Pick and choose your preferences from the range of contemporary and historical Australian, Asian, Pacific and international art on display.There’s something for everyone, whether you’re aged 3 or 103.
Queensland Art Gallery
The Queensland Art Gallery building opened in 1982 as part of the first stage of the Queensland Cultural Centre at South Bank; until then, the Gallery never had a purpose-built permanent home. Designed around the Brisbane River, the spectacular Watermall’s cavernous interior runs parallel to the waterway threading its way through the ‘River City’.
Collection highlights: Australian art
The work of Australian artists have been collected by the Queensland Art Gallery since its foundation in 1895, however few works in our Collection have enjoyed as much popularity as Under the jacaranda 1903 by R Godfrey Rivers (illustrated). Considered a quintessential image of Brisbane, the clouds of purple blooms capture the attention of Gallery visitors and has ensured the painting’s enduring appeal. Hanging alongside is Monday morning 1912 by Vida Lahey (illustrated), another of the Gallery’s most loved works. The painting of two young women doing the family wash, once a common sight in Australian households, now a recording of a by-gone era.
Interesting facts: Under the jacaranda depicts the first jacaranda tree grown in Australia, planted in Brisbane’s Botanic Gardens in 1864; while the laundry room depicted in Monday morning was located in the artist’s home, at the time piped water and built-in concrete troughs were considered modern conveniences!
Location: Australian Art Collection, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Galleries (10-13)
R Godfrey Rivers Under the jacaranda 1903
Vida Lahey Monday morning 1912
Collection highlight: Contemporary Australian art
The jewellery-like intimacy of Fiona Hall’s Australian set (from ‘Paradisus Terrestris Entitled’ series) 1998–99 (illustrated) is a juxtaposition between culture and nature; human body parts combine with native botanical species, while Rosalie Gascoigne is best known for her wall-based assemblages, Lamp lit 1989 (illustrated) created from discarded road signs.
Interesting facts: Fiona Hall has transformed humble disposal sardine-tins by engraving, chasing and burnishing in the tradition of the colonial silversmith. ‘Lamp lit’ might suggest car headlights catching the road signs from which the work is made, but it also refers to the artist’s emotional response to a mass of brilliant yellow lantern-shaped flowers she encountered on the road to Bungendore in New South Wales, which inspired the work.
Location: Australian Art Collection, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Galleries (10-13)
Fiona Hall Australian set 1998–99
Rosalie Gascoigne Lamp lit 1989
Collection highlights: Indigenous Australian art
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.
Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa was a well-known artist and respected Elder of Anmatyerre/Arrernte heritage. Goanna Story c.1973-74 (illustrated) is from one of the traditional dreaming stories, and this work shows four of the reptiles moving towards a waterhole. Walangkura Napanangka's Untitled (Tjintjintjin) 2006 (illustrated) depicts the rockhole and cave site of Tjintjintjin, to the west of Walungurra (Kintore) in Western Australia.
Interesting facts: Goanna Story has a strong sense of symmetry; one half is a mirror image of the other, while Tjintjintjin's symbols map out the area's geographical features, through which ancestor figure Kutungka Napanangka passed on her travels across the Gibson Desert during the creation time.
Location: Australian Art Collection, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Galleries (10-13)
Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa Goanna Story c.1973–74
Walangkura Napanangka Untitled (Tjintjintjin) 2006
Collection highlights: International art
Surrounded by works from Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (illustrated) and Edgar Degas (illustrated), La Belle Hollandaise (The beautiful Dutch girl) 1905 (illustrated) is a key painting that marks a transition from the subdued hues and emaciated figures of Pablo Picasso’s ‘blue period’ to the serenity and warmth of the ‘rose period’. Picasso must have been pleased with the result — he inscribed the work at the top left as a gift to Paco Durio, his dear friend and neighbour in the Parisian suburb of Montmartre.
Interesting fact: Pablo Picasso's La belle Hollandaise was donated to the Gallery in 1959; at the time this major work by one of the greatest living twentieth century masters; set a world record price at £55,000.
Location: International Art Collection, Philip Bacon Galleries (7-9)
Pablo Picasso La Belle Hollandaise 1905
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Tete de fille (Head of a girl) 1892
Edgar Degas Three dancers at a dance class c.1888-90
Roy and Matilda
For those visiting with children of all ages, drop by the home of Roy and Matilda, two mice who one day decided to visit the Queensland Art Gallery, loved it so much, they decided to say. Just look for the letters 'R' and 'M' carved into their beautiful wooden front door.
Interesting fact: One day, a man who worked in the Galley’s workshop restoring and carving frames found they were living here and decided to make them a special little front door.
Location: Australian Art Collection, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Galleries (10-13)
Watermall & Sculpture Courtyard
The Queensland Art Gallery’s grand Watermall — a visitor favourite for both regular art lovers and tourists — extends far beyond the Gallery’s interior; past the Dandelion fountains (illustrated) through to the reflection pond and Sculpture Courtyard. Why not relax and enjoy a quiet moment of contemplation at the adjoining QAG Cafe.
Interesting facts: The Queensland Art Gallery was designed in harmony with the Brisbane River, receiving the prestigious Sir Zelman Cowen Award for Public Architecture the year it opened, now protected after Queensland Heritage status.
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