QLD GALS
Exhibition Dates: 10 October – 20 November 2025
QLD GALS is proudly presented by FireWorks Gallery–a commercial gallery based in Brisbane–here at Canberra Art Gallery. For over 30 years, FireWorks has been exhibiting contemporary Indigenous and non-Indigenous artworks, as well as fostering collaboration and cross-cultural dialogue. QLD GALS reveals over forty artworks by seven celebrated contemporary artists who work across a range of medium including painting, limited edition works on paper, sculpture and installation.
The exhibition starts off with the paintings, sculptures, and stories of three of the Lockhart River Art Gang (1995) founding artists. In this expressionist style painting Moonlight wer reef (2017), Samantha Hobson (Kuuku Y’ua) uses colour pigments with estapol. This major work belongs to the Reef/Life series. The artist comments, ‘We are Sandbeach people, and we grew up living off the reef. There are hundreds of reefs off Lockhart River, some close up we can easily get to by boat …my memories are of bright colours of life on the reef. Under the tropical water the colours are strong with the fish flashing past, the coral and sea.’
Since 2019, Rosella Namok (Aangkum / Ungkum) has focused on developing sculptural works–reflecting a technique she uses in her 2D paintings–where she creates patterned, linear arrangements by pulling her fingers through the layers of paint. These linear arrangements are translated with ease to this 3D floor sculpture– made of sand cast bronze and patina–titled Kaapay & Kuyan (Two Moieties Land & Sea) (2021). For Ungkum people, Kaapay and Kuyan refer to the two equally balanced social and ritual groupings used to organise kinship structures and relationships.
Another of Namok’s sculptures, Temple Bay (Mangrove Stories) A/P was completed (2023) in tandem with the painting titled, Yakamu - Light on the water. Assembled on a curved base, this sculpture comprises 16 vertical highly polished bronze ‘ribbons’–finished with two distinctive patinas–representing mangrove roots.
Fiona Omeenyo’s (Umpila) two-panel LED wall installation Watching Over (2023) depicts Mother and child, with the ancestor figure. The artist often incorporates linear arrangements in her art practice which is predominantly painting. Through this imagery, Omeenyo speaks about the importance of connecting people to country as well as to spiritual worlds, a continuous relationship with past and present.
In contrast to Hobson, Namok and Omeenyo, who work in studios between Lockhart River, Cairns and Brisbane, Yvonne Mills-Stanley is based solely in Brisbane. These exquisitely crafted oil paintings (both 2024) depict the grassy hills of the artist’s home-studio on Mt Glorious. Mills-Stanley commented, ‘A number of these paintings relate in an ethereal way to dreams and some to memory and some are just simply there as a reminder of what we are always surrounded by and that is, Grass …Don’t worry about the snakes I is from memory of place. The memory of being in The Centre with the magic of a clear sky …Don’t worry about the snakes II (2024) …down on the Wivenhoe/Somerset Road heading through lush green grass then out to open pastures.
Alongside Mills-Stanley’s works are three magnificent oil paintings by Pat Hoffie, also Brisbane-based, featuring details from plein air painting studies the artist made amidst the granite outcrops at Girraween National Park some 250-300 km south of Brisbane. In relation to Psychological Landscape After Balthus (Dream Lover) (2023) the artist comments, ‘This work draws from Balthus’ 1936 painting “The Mountain”, where a strange hiking party takes rest on the ‘health affirming’ slopes of a Swiss range. I used references from time spent plein air painting in Girraween National Park to set up an imaginary, pixelated, dream-like sequence featuring some of my fellow plein air painters caught in a lacuna between art history and a Country in which we are strangers.’
Sunshine Coast-based artist Jennifer Herd’s (Mbararrum) oeuvre pays tribute to the Bama warriors of her grandmother’s country in the North Queensland rainforests of the Atherton Tableland region. The artist recently stated in relation to the "Off Country Maps" series, such as this Off Country (Rainforest II) (2025), that these ‘…are a visceral response to the AIATSIS and Norman Tindale maps …Pinholes scar the [320gsm
Sihl] paper, marking the frontier conflicts, forced dispersals, and missionary campaigns that displaced Aboriginal people across the country. The "country elements" encircling the maps mimic camouflage, highlighting the systemic erasure and invisibility of Aboriginal people within colonial systems. Yet, their bold aesthetic declares a powerful truth: we're still here. Unsettled but unbroken, we continue to resist, rebel, and reclaim our rights to this land.’
In contrast to the delicate and minuteness of the artist’s pinhole works, this bold wall-mounted installation Window Pain - Portal to the past (2023) echoes the idea of home truths breaking through a framed colonial world view. Composed as a portal to the past, revealing glimpses of frontier resistance too often camouflaged in the nation’s narrative, this work is designed as a closed window, with an option for the windows to be left ajar, further unveiling the image in the background.
Water is the recurring subject and theme for another Brisbane-based artist Joanne Currie Nailngu (Gungurri) who stated, ‘I grew up on the ‘Yumba’, [home / camp] out west by the banks of the Maranoa River [in the Murray-Darling basin some 500 kilometers west of Brisbane] in the 1960s …I’ve always painted about the Maranoa area, the traditional designs found on shields and artefacts, the lines and colours of the river …I try to keep it simple …clean and sharp!’ In Shadow flow (2025), the artist deviates from her signature use of flat acrylic paints; here she has delicately blended soft background layers–warm yellows, ochres and tans–resulting in an effect reminiscent of evening light.
All seven artists are delighted to be exhibiting in QLD GALS at Canberra Art Gallery, with Pat Hoffie’s solo exhibition I have loved/I love/I will love also currently showing at QAGOMA. Throughout Canberra, the other artists have works held across various public collections including National Gallery of Australia, Australian War Memorial and Australian Parliament House.
Exhibition Curator, and FireWorks Gallery Director, Michael Eather comments, ‘QLD GALS presents a dynamic slice of Queensland’s unique expression through artworks inspired by nature, personal, and cultural perspectives.’