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Tuesday 10am - 4pm Wednesday 10am - 4pm Thursday 10am - 4pm Friday 10am - 4pm Saturday 11am - 3pm

UQ Art Museum

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Brisbane, QLD
UQ Art Museum

A site for progressive and contemporary artistic inquiry.

The University of Queensland Art Collection is one of Queensland’s most significant public art collections. Developed over 70 years, it features more than 4,400 works of art, comprised predominantly of Australian artists from the colonial period to the present.

The Art Collection and the Art Museum’s creative program support and inform each other. The Art Collection speaks to the Art Museum’s d

istinct place within the University context and engages with practices and ideas central to research and learning in their many forms. Collection artworks are displayed in exhibitions, in the dedicated Collection Study Room, and in buildings across the University's campuses.

The Art Collection fosters new artistic inquiry, seeking out works of contemporary Australian art that articulate and complicate conditions present at the time of their making.

28/05/2026

"Affectionately referred to by our staff as “the lady on the couch", we are particularly drawn to the rawness and beauty of the artwork. Its presence adds depth, character, and personality to the restaurant, enhancing the atmosphere of both Patina and the Radon Room. The artwork consistently evokes a strong response from our guests and it has become the most sought-after table in the restaurant and contributes to the overall guest experience, creating memorable moments for those who dine with us."

— Arturo Flores, Food and Beverage Manager, Customs House / Patina at Alumni Court

📍 Patina Alumni Court, UQ St Lucia
🕚 Open 7am-3.30pm, Mon-Wed / 7am-9pm Thurs-Fri

Realist painter John Brack was a prominent figure in the 20th century Australian art, known for his restrained yet stylistic artistic approach. In Brack's work, the lives of everyday Australians are realised in flat shapes and simplified lines, often in a subdued colour palette. Depicting scenes drawn from inner city and outer suburban Melbourne/Naarm, public life and private domestic realities are transformed by Brack's brush, becoming disquieting and unhomely.

This painting was donated by Professor William Ross Johnston who graduated from The University of Queensland with a Bachelor of Laws in 1961 and a Master of Arts in 1965. Dr Johnston began collecting contemporary art in the early 1970s. The donation of this painting is his most significant gift to any institution, and its gift will ensure the artwork will be available to scholars, students, and community members for generations to come.

There are over 400 artworks from the UQ Art Collection on display around our campuses as part of the Art On Campus program. Learn more: https://art-museum.uq.edu.au/art-on-campus

Image: John Brack, 'N**e with crossed legs', 1974. Installation view, The University of Queensland. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program by W. Ross Johnston, 2023. Photo: Joe Ruckli.

Patina Restaurant

18/05/2026

Celebrate NAIDOC Week with us as we honour this year’s theme, '50 Years of Deadly', through a special art walking tour of the UQ Art Museum Collection.

Developed and led by UQ student and UQ Art Museum team member Braelyn Rolfe-Chase, this guided tour explores powerful Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artworks across multiple locations on The University of Queensland, St Lucia campus. Connect with works by acclaimed artists including Richard Bell, Rosella Namok, Fiona Foley and more, while celebrating culture, creativity, and storytelling through art.

The tour includes light to moderate walking, with portable stools and wheelchair-accessible routes available throughout.

📍 UQ, St Lucia campus
📅 Wed 8 July - 10:30am & 1pm
📅 Fri 10 July - 10:30am & 1pm
🎟 Free event
🔗 Bookings essential: https://events.humanitix.com/art-walking-tour-first-nations-art-on-campus-50-years-of-deadly

Artworks: 1) Rosella Namok, 'Going and coming to Cairns' 2000. Installation view. Collection of The University of Queensland, purchased 2001. Photo: Joe Ruckli. 2) Richard Bell, 'Me' 2015. Installation view. Collection of the University of Queensland, purchased 2016. Photo: Joe Ruckli.

15/05/2026

Join Access Lab & Library for a free in-person workshop exploring experimental image description, captioning and inter-sensory translation through improvisational, conversational, poetic and disruptive creative exercises. It will culminate in a script and staging directions for a live, hybrid publication and performance based on these experiments. Central to the workshop is an experimental approach to inter-sensory translation, working through ways the different senses expand creative expression and knowledge.

This free in-person workshop will take place on campus at UQ and will build on the themes of the reading group sessions (prior participation in the reading group is recommended but not required). Open to artists, arts workers, students, researchers and anyone interested in contemporary disability thinking and practice.

📍 Sir Llew Edwards Building, UQ St Lucia
📅 Participation via EOI only: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=z3fjtrOdy0aRovrZYFuxXIfrgZ0xSL5PqOueno_dAmlURFdQQlBGQVpLVEFHMkxUVEY2VDdZMlJGVi4u
⏰ EOIs close 11pm Sunday 24 May - one week to go!

Places are limited. A social story with more information about what to expect on the day is available here:https://art-museum.uq.edu.au/files/38261/Social%20story.pdf

Image: Jon Tjhia

22/04/2026

They say the clothes make the man, but does a gown make the portrait sitter? Join UQ Art Museum and Brisbane Portrait Prize to explore the stories behind fashionably dressed bodies in portraiture.

With costume scholar Dr Madeline Taylor and UQ Gender Studies Convenor Dr Cassandra Byrnes, you're invited to look closely at artist Jon Molvig's 1963 Archibald Prize entry, Joy Roggenkamp, featuring fellow artist and former student Joy Roggenkamp, from the UQ Art Collection.

See the original painting, the garment worn by the sitter and working sketches up close as Dr Taylor and Dr Byrnes discuss how the costuming of portrait sitters painted our perceptions of fashion, gender and society throughout the history of portraiture.

6-8pm Thu 28 May 2026
Ticketed, refreshments included
The Terrace Room, Level 6 Sir Llew Edwards Building (Building 14)
The University of Queensland, St Lucia QLD 4072

Purchase your tickets: https://events.humanitix.com/threads-of-identity-stories-of-fashioned-portraits

Are you an UQ Art History student?
Email: [email protected] for a discount code.

Image: Jon Molvig, "Joy Roggenkamp", 1963, oil on composition board, image 122.5 x 98.5 cm. Collection of The University of Queensland. Purchased with the assistance of Alumni Friends of The University of Queensland Inc. and Veronika Butta, 2012.

Brisbane Portrait Prize

20/04/2026

✨️ Meet the 2026 Venice Biennale Cultural Mediators ✨

We are proud to continue our partnership with Creative Australia in support of the 61st International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, through our Cultural Mediation training. Successful participants have been selected to undertake cultural mediation for the Australia Pavilion, featuring Khaled Sabsabi’s 'conference of one’s self', curated by Michael Dagostino and commissioned by Creative Australia.

Front-of-house and public engagement practitioners will welcome, guide and connect international audiences. From May to November, the Attendant Managers and Pavilion Attendants will be based in Venice to gain hands-on experience at the Australia Pavilion, serving as the vital link between the exhibition and its international global audiences - fostering thoughtful conversations and creating space for exchange.

Congratulations to the selected mediators, and to all who took part in the competitive recruitment process!

✨Attendant Managers:
Lisa Fuller, QLD
Gala Jane Hazell, VIC
Natalie O'Connor, NSW

✨Pavilion Attendants:
Jordan Azcune, QLD
Nur Aishah Abdullah Farid Kenton, VIC
Charlie Komšić, NSW
Joshua Purvis, NSW
Lucy Wilson, VIC

Learn more: https://art-museum.uq.edu.au/article/2026/04/2026-cultural-mediation-program-participants-la-biennale-di-venezia

Image: 2026 Cultural Mediators with artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino at the cultural mediation workshop run by UQ Art Museum at Arts & Cultural Exchange (ACE) Parramatta, 2026. Photo: Anna Kucera

Creative Australia

16/04/2026

"Having elements of sea life and country in a colonial institution grounds you. I am drawn to the natural elements of the cypress pine and oyster shells as they evoke memories of shelling oysters for my Mum and the challenge of prying open the shells with a sharp knife. The strength of the oyster shells reminds me of the analogy that tough exteriors with soft centres represent people: you need to work in different ways to get them to open up, to find a soft centre."
— Lesley Acres, Manager, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Services and Collections, UQ Library

📍 Central Library, Duhig North Building 12, Level 2, UQ St Lucia
🕚 Open 7am-10pm, Mon-Fri / 7am-6pm Weekends

There are over 400 artworks from the UQ Art Collection on display around our campuses as part of the Art On Campus program. Learn more:
https://art-museum.uq.edu.au/art-on-campus

'Whispers (poles),' 2023, emerges from Cope's connection to Quandamooka Country, encompassing lands, sands, and seas in present-day Moreton Bay. Her artwork is informed by her cultural relationships and ancestral practices to Kinyingarra (oyster in Jandai and Gowar languages), and the histories and devastations to midden sites and oyster reefs on Quandamooka Country. Oyster reefs are vital for saltwater ecosystems: they act as natural breakwaters, filter and improve water quality, and provide habitat for fish and other marine life.

Images: 1) Megan Cope, "Whispers (poles)", 2023. Installation view, The University of Queensland, 2026. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program by Megan Cope, 2025 Photo: Joe Ruckli 2) Quote from Lesley Acres 3) Megan Cope, “Whispers (poles)”, 2023. Installation view, “to come together as water”, UQ Art Museum, 2025. Photo: Joe Ruckli. 4) Megan Cope, "Whispers (poles)", 2023. Installation view, The University of Queensland, 2026. Photo: Joe Ruckli

30/03/2026

Join a free online reading group led by Access Lab & Library’s Jon Tjhia and Fayen D’Evie, informed by their approach towards access as a platform for generosity. The group will have a conversational and informal tone, with an intention to create a welcoming space for sharing and discussion.

Participants will be encouraged to explore ideas and texts that position access thinking as something beyond compliance level accommodations, and instead as a mode of relationality and a critical field of practice in contemporary art

The reading group is open to all interested participants and is particularly suited to artists and arts workers of all kinds, or anyone who believes in the transformational power of art.

This reading group occurs fortnightly: Wednesday 20 May, 3 June and 17 June, 10am-12pm (AEST). Participants can attend one or all sessions.

Texts will be distributed to participants on 20 April, a month ahead of the first session.

Register now:https://events.humanitix.com/against-the-protocols-of-the-civilised-body-online-reading-group-access-lab-library

Image courtesy Access Lab & Library

23/03/2026

"This piece elicits a sense of wonder. The darker colours are offset with vibrancy, allowing each of the colours in the work to stand alone but also in balance with the others. Perhaps akin to The Pleiades constellation, this piece of art speaks to the adventurous scientist spirit in me, as there always seems to be something new to discover in the patterns."
— A/Prof Shyuan Ngo, Principal Research Fellow and Group Leader, AIBN

📍 AIBN, Building 75, St Lucia
🕚 Open: 8am-6pm Mon-Fri

The artwork title, "Minyma Tjuta", translates from Pitjantjatjara language to ‘many women’ or ‘women’s collaborative’ and depicts Minyma Tjuta Tjukurpa (Seven Sisters Creation Line).

The artists share, "this songline follows the movements of a group of sisters who traverse the country evading the clutches of a lustful older man known as Nyiru. […] It is during these escapades that the landscape is created and formations left as ever present reminders of the power involved with creation beings. The women take a path north and eventually fly into the sky to become the Pleiades Constellation, one of the closest star clusters to earth."

There are over 400 artworks from the UQ Art Collection on display around our campuses as part of the Art On Campus program. Learn more: https://art-museum.uq.edu.au/art-on-campus

Images: 1) Spinifex Womens Collaborative: Debbie Hansen (1967-), Kunmanara (Estelle) Hogan (1937-2017), Ivy Laidlaw (1945-2023), Jennifer Mitchell (1955-), Kunmara (Myrtle) Pennington (1939-2022), Ngalpingka Simms (1945-) and Tjaruwa Woods (c.1954-2019), "Minyma Tjuta (Seven Sisters)", 2016. Installation view, The University of Queensland, 2026. Purchased with the assistance of Cathryn Mittelheuser AM in memory of Margaret Mittelheuser AM, 2016. Photo: Joe Ruckli 2) Quote from Associate Professor Shyuan Ngo 3) Artwork detail. Photo: Joe Ruckli

20/03/2026

Our team has had a busy start to the year packing and moving UQ's art collection - over 4,000 artworks! - as part of our building relocation. A huge amount of care, skill and camaraderie is going into the project, with each artwork tracked, packed and moved with love 💌

We are delighted to share that BVN Architecture has been appointed to lead the design of our new space in the Forgan Smith Tower, bringing extensive global experience and a strong connection to UQ, having previously restored the University’s Brisbane City location in the heritage‑listed 308 Queen Street building.

The design will be led by BVN Principal Architect, Kevin O’Brien (Kaurareg and Meriam, and UQ alum), whose collaborative work spans artists, performers and cultural institutions. O’Brien was the exhibition design consultant for 'kith and kin', the Golden Lion‑winning Venice Biennale artwork by Kamilaroi and Bigambul artist Archie Moore, curated by Ellie Buttrose. He has also developed design work for shortlisted cultural schemes including the Gallery of South Australia (Adelaide), the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Gallery of Australia (Alice Springs), Ngurra (Canberra), and Powerhouse (Parramatta).

Learn more: https://about.uq.edu.au/strategy-values/infrastructure-investment/new-uq-art-museum

📷: Joe Ruckli

23/02/2026

“I love the intimacy of experiencing Teresa Baker’s work, held within a cave-like alcove. It draws you in to reflect upon the interwoven layers of Story and Knowledge that resonate through the artwork’s rich colours and expressive, kinetic details. ”
— Felicity Andrews, PhD Candidate, School of Communication and Arts

📍 Global Change Institute, Building 20, Level 1, UQ St Lucia
🕚 Open: 7am–10pm (Mon–Fri) / 7am–6pm (Weekends)

There are over 400 artworks from the UQ Art Collection on display around our campuses as part of the Art On Campus program. Learn more: https://art-museum.uq.edu.au/art-on-campus

Images: 1) Teresa Baker, "Tjukurpa Kutjara", 2012. Installation view, The University of Queensland, 2026. Purchased with the assistance of Dr Elaine Katte, 2013. Photo: Joe Ruckli 2) quote from Felicity Andrews 3) Artwork detail.

Address

James And Mary Emelia Mayne Centre , The University Of
Brisbane, QLD
4072

Opening Hours

Tuesday	10am - 4pm
Wednesday	10am - 4pm
Thursday	10am - 4pm
Friday	10am - 4pm
Saturday	11am - 3pm

Telephone

+61 7 3365 3046

Website

http://www.art-museum.uq.edu.au/

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