Courage and Beauty: Symbolism

For over two decades, Brisbane collector and benefactor James C. Sourris AM has amassed an extraordinary collection of postwar and contemporary Australian art. ‘Courage and Beauty: The James C. Sourris AM Collection’ at the Gallery of Modern Art until 25 June 2023 demonstrates Sourris’s drive to acquire exceptional works of art — especially those that…

Dale Harding working on his commission, inspired by rock art

Dale Harding: Collecting Australia

In celebration of NAIDOC Week 2019, we invited award-winning author and Mununjali woman Ellen Van Neerven to develop a series of written responses entitled ‘Collecting Australia’, which draw inspiration from works featured in our Australian Art Collection. This is the first of three blogs combining our work with van Neerven’s poetry. Collecting Australia I wrote…

Dale Harding working on his commission Wall Composition in Reckitt’s Blue

View the installation of Dale Harding’s wall composition

View the installation time-lapse of Dale Harding’s Wall Composition in Reckitt’s Blue 2017, specially commissioned for the Australian art collection. Aboriginal painting represents at least 99 per cent of the timeline of Australian art-making, with a verified history dating back some 28 000 years. Thousands of rock galleries throughout the landscape carry the signs of such…

Dale Harding working on his commission onsite at the Queensland Art Gallery

Dale Harding discusses his incredible year

Dale Harding graduated from the Queensland College of Art in 2014, yet his opportunities and achievements since speak to a much longer practice, indeed a ‘cultural continuum’ to which he is connected through country. His artwork includes wall murals, sculpture and installations which are an exploration of the political histories and presence of his family…

Conrad Martens, England/Australia 1801-1878 / Forest, Cunningham's Gap 1856 / Watercolour on paper / Purchased 1998 with funds raised through The Conrad Martens Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Appeal and with the assistance of the Queensland Government's special Centenary Fund / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

We consider depictions of the land

Highlighted in our third post on your Australian Art Collection reimagined are works which are included in the chronological ‘spine’ along the back wall of the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Galleries. Adjacent to Dale Harding’s wall commission view works from both the European landscape tradition and representations of country by Aboriginal artists. DELVE DEEPER: KNOW BRISBANE…

Dale Harding working on his commission, inspired by rock art

We start with the First Australians

Telling the Story of Australian Art The second in our series on your Australian Art Collection reimagined, we focus on the major commission from Dale Harding, descendent of the Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal peoples of central Queensland, who has been inspired by the significant galleries of rock art around his country near Carnarvon Gorge. One of…