Visitors of all ages will find wonder and awe in the everyday with Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art’s major free exhibition, Wonderstruck, on display until 6 October 2025.
Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) Director Chris Saines said Wonderstruck is a journey through spectacular large-scale installations, captivating small treasures and immersive experiences that reveal how wonder abounds in many things.
“Wonder enters our world through play and imagination, and can be inspired by our interactions with nature and encounters with the intangible,” said Mr Saines.
“This exhibition, drawn from the Gallery’s Collection and the rich catalogue of projects developed by QAGOMA’s Children’s Art Centre in collaboration with contemporary artists, also considers how wonder emerges from combinations of colour, pattern and visual illusion and an appreciation of the extraordinary within the ordinary.”
Presented across six chapters, Wonderstruck includes more than 100 works by international and Australian artists including Ah Xian, Nick Cave, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Gordon Hookey, Madeleine Kelly, Yvonne Koolmatrie, Craig Koomeeta, Yayoi Kusama, Rosemary Laing, Ron Mueck, Patricia Piccinini, Brian Robinson, Sandra Selig, Gemma Smith, Yuken Teruya, Judy Watson, Louise Weaver, Jemima Wyman and more.
Wonderstruck is co-curated by Tamsin Cull, Head of Public Engagement, and Laura Mudge, Senior Program Officer, Children’s Art Centre, QAGOMA.
Tamsin Cull said the exhibition would present multiple interactive projects alongside artworks by major Australian and international artists. To be struck by wonder is not to escape reality, but to live with heightened awareness, and this exhibition reminds us that opportunities to experience awe and wonder are everywhere if we just stop and notice,” said Ms Cull.
“Audiences will encounter works that transform familiar objects, such as Slovenian artist Tobias Putrih’s Connection 2004, which reconfigures humble cardboard boxes into a monumental arch, and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s display of Neolithic pottery subversively dipped in brightly coloured paint.”
“Patricia Piccinini and Ron Mueck’s hyperreal sculptures offer a window into the fragility of the human experience, inviting viewers to bring their own perspective to read the expressions of the woman in Mueck’s oversized In bed 2005, or the child perched precariously on a stack of chairs in Piccinini’s The Observer 2010.”
“The dozens of lives represented in miniature in N.S. Harsha’s massive triptych We come, we eat, we sleep 1999-2001 remind us that life is a process, that no one exists in isolation, and that there is beauty in the perpetual cycles of life.”
We’re also thrilled Australian artist Gemma Smith – whose work explores the interaction between colour and surface, intention and chance – recently led a workshop with a small group of Brisbane State High School students to make an ambitious, large-scale painting for inclusion in the exhibition,” said Ms Cull.
Laura Mudge said many artworks in Wonderstruck would capture a sense of playfulness and whimsy, while others encouraged taking time to look more slowly.
“Through play, we are transported to different worlds, as in the fantasy-inspired portals into magical lands in Pip & Pop’s vibrant Rainbow Bridge 2011, or Emily Floyd’s Steiner Rainbow 2006, a scaled-up version of the popular children’s stacking toy,” said Ms Mudge.
“American artist Nick Cave’s brightly coloured sculptural horse costumes HEARD 2012 evoke the transformative act of dressing up with a visual feast of fabric, raffia, beads and sequins.”
“The influence of colour and pattern on how we perceive the world is explored in the shifting gradient of colours in Syagini Ratna Wulan’s abstract painting Parhelion 2021 and in Yayoi Kusama’s much-loved interactive installation The Obliteration Room 2002–present, which consists of a domestic environment recreated in the gallery space that visitors are invited to transform through the application of colourful dot stickers.”
The capacity of nature to fill us with awe is seen in Parekōwhai’s gravity-defying sculpture of a seal balancing a baby grand piano on its nose, The Horn of Africa 2006, while Brian Robinson reminds us of the wonder found in the night skies in his large-scale print and accompanying animation Lagalgal: The Mysteries of our Land 2022,” said Ms Mudge.
Other exhibition highlights include: Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan’s participatory installation In flight (Project: Another country) 2009, where visitors draw from a vast range of found materials to create small sculptures that becomes part of the overall work.
Kwaia koromb 2012, a small spirit house that offers a space for quiet contemplation, created by Papua New Guinea-based Kwoma Arts Collective artists Simon Goiyap, Anton Waiawas, Kevin Apsepa, Terry Pakiey, Nelson Makamoi, Jamie Jimok and Rex Maukos.
Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian’s expansive six-panel tessellated mirror mosaic Lightning for Neda 2009, which draws the viewer into its highly reflective surface and shifting vanishing points.
Yuken Teruya’s Notice – Forest 2006, everyday shopping bags that have been refashioned by the artist into intricate sculptures containing hand-cut paper trees.
Sandra Selig’s wondrous installation mid-air 2003 that sketches form in space using hundreds of metres of delicate white thread and small styrofoam balls.
Wonderstruck
Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), Stanley Place, South Brisbane
Exhibition continues to 6 October 2025
Free entry
For more information, visit: www.qagoma.qld.gov.au for details.
Images: Yayoi Kusama / Japan b.1929 / The Obliteration Room (installation view) 2002–present / Furniture, white paint, dot stickers / Dimensions variable / Collaboration between Yayoi Kusama and Queensland Art Gallery. Commissioned by the Queensland Art Gallery. Gift of the artist through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2012 / Collection: QAGOMA, Brisbane / © Yayoi Kusama / Photograph: N Harth © QAGOMA | Ron Mueck / England b.1958 / In bed (installation view) 2005 / Mixed media / 161.9 x 649.9 x 395cm / Purchased 2008. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Ron Mueck | Emily Floyd / Australia b.1972 / Steiner rainbow 2006 / Two-part epoxy paint on medium density fibreboard / Nine parts. Part a (dark blue): 54 x 131 x 60cm; part b (light blue): 82 x 160 x 60cm; part c (teal): 96 x 188 x 60cm; part d (dark green): 110 x 217 x 60cm; part e (light green): 124.5 x 245 x 60cm; part f (yellow): 139 x 275 x 60cm; part g (orange): 154 x 303 x 60cm; part h (light red): 166 x 334 x 60cm; part i (deep red): 180 x 362.5 x 60cm. / Gift of the artist through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2011. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Emily Floyd/ Courtesy: The artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery | Alfredo Juan Aquilizan / Philippines/Australia b.1962 / Maria Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan / Philippines/Australia b.1965 / In-flight (Project: Another Country) (installation view) 2009 / Courtesy and © Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan / Photograph: K Bennett © QAGOMA