BNE ART - Brisbane Art Guide

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BNE ART - Brisbane Art Guide

BNE ART — Brisbane Art Guide is your guide to contemporary visual art in Brisbane and surrounding areas. BRISBANE ART since 2010. www.bneart.com

Explore exhibitions, events, opportunities and galleries from across the region. BNE ART - Brisbane Art Guide is dedicated to the celebration, promotion and archival of visual arts content from Brisbane and its surrounding areas. The guide aims to connect you to the local contemporary arts scene and the artists and art spaces that define it. BNE ART has been operating over the past decade as an independent and open sourced resource for the Brisbane arts community. Founder / Director - Travis Dewan

17/10/2026

Elysha Rei: Paper Echoes
23 October - November 21
Onespace Gallery

Onespace presents Paper Echoes, a solo exhibition by Elysha Rei in the Main Gallery, exploring memory, identity and belonging through the delicate and versatile medium of paper.

Returning to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, thirty-eight years after being born in Tabuk, Rei revisits a landscape previously known to her through photographs, documents, family stories and archival footage.

Through paper cutting, photography, video, scent and sound, the exhibition explores memory, inheritance and the connections between people and place. It asks how recognition can exist beyond conscious memory and how fragments of experience reverberate across generations.

Paper becomes both material and metaphor: a witness to lives recorded through passports, photographs, birth certificates and archives. Shaped by removal, preservation and chance encounters, the works consider what remains when memory is incomplete and how inherited fragments can become part of a new, lived archive.

Opening Event: Thursday 22 October 2026, 6:30–8pm. Artist talk: 5:30–6:15pm. RSVP via Humanitix.

Additional Event: Elysha Rei paper-cutting workshop, Saturday 14 November 2026. Further information to come.

More info - bneart.com

Image: Elysha Rei, Inherited Horizon III, 2026. Individual sets of photo montages of archival photos taken by artists parents in 1986, printed as Giclee print on Hahnemühle cotton rag paper. Installation dimensions vary.

13/10/2026

Bronwyn Hill: Bloom
17 - 31 October
Lethbridge Gallery

Lethbridge Gallery presents Bloom, the latest collection by Brisbane-based painter Bronwyn Hill. Following a successful VIP preview, the collection features a selection of oil paintings exploring introspection, observation and the beauty of natural forms.

Hill is recognised for her photorealistic oil paintings, which combine poetic narratives with gentle observation. Her practice focuses on portraiture and figurative representation, often exploring self-analysis and introspection through moments of personal solitude.

A sense of stillness and contemplation runs throughout her work, with light, shadow and subtle colour contributing to the emotional depth of her compositions.
Gallery director Brett Lethbridge describes Mille Heures as a significant work in the collection, bringing together Hill’s concentrated effort, observation, patience and technical control.

Opening Event: Saturday 17 October 2026, 4–6pm.

More info - bneart.com

12/10/2026

- Exhibition in Brisbane

Daniel Clifford: Nothing dumb
9 - 31 October
chapter

Nothing dumb transforms salvaged mid-century materials into playful works exploring family, communication and belonging. Through the use of familiar objects, Brisbane-based artist Daniel Clifford invites us to consider the systems we inherit, the identities we construct and the ways we learn to find our place within them.

Working across installation, sculpture and site-responsive practice, Clifford explores the social, cultural and material conditions shaping urban and non-urban environments. His work often focuses on moments of transition and instability, where structures appear provisional, displaced or on the verge of collapse. A subtle tragicomic sensibility runs through his practice, bringing humour and unease together to reveal tensions and quiet absurdities in everyday experience.

Opening Hours:

Thursdays: 2–5pm

Fridays: 2–5pm

Saturdays: 2–4pm

Image: The Successful Integration of Incompatible Systems 2026, repurposed Formica table, acrylic ink, acrylic paint, 2pak clear coat90 x 150 x 4 cm

03/10/2026

- Exhibition in Brisbane

Michael Nelson Jagamara: Possum Stories
10 October - 21 November
Fireworks Gallery

FireWorks Gallery presents Michael Nelson Jagamara: Possum Stories, an exhibition exploring one of the Warlpiri artist’s foundational narratives, the Possum Dreaming.

The Possum Dreaming is an epic story grounded in complex kinship structures, taboos and tribal lore. The story of two young Possum lovers and their punishment has been central to Jagamara’s artistic practice.

The exhibition brings together key works painted between 2000 and 2019, including Possum Classic (2013), which returns to the vibrant ‘gelati’ colours of Jagamara’s earlier Sydney Opera House work, and Possum People (2019–21), one of his final paintings, completed with the assistance of family.

The exhibition also highlights Jagamara’s significant collaborations with Australian artist Imants Tillers. Five joint works created between Brisbane, Papunya and Cooma feature Jagamara’s Possum imagery. Know Yourself (2021), completed posthumously by Tillers, brings together Jagamara’s central Possum motif with Tillers’ layered imagery and texts. Works from the collaboration are held in collections including QAGOMA, Parliament House, Canberra and Tate Modern, London.

Floor Talk: Saturday 17 October, 2:30pm with Michael Eather

Opening: Saturday 17 October, 3–5pm, opened by Simon Wright, Assistant Director, Learning and Public Engagement, Queensland Art Gallery

More info - bneart.com /

Image: Michael Nelson Jagamara & Imants Tillers Know Yourself 2021 synthetic polymer paint & gouache on 22 canvas boards

01/10/2026

- Artist Call Out

Bus Projects: 2027 Open Call
Deadline: 4 October

Bus Projects invites artists, curators and collectives to submit proposals for its 2027 Artistic Program.

The organisation is seeking creative practices that communicate current positionality and intersectional thinking across exhibitions, public programs, performances and interdisciplinary formats. Experimental and pivotal ideas across all creative disciplines are encouraged.

Exhibiting at Bus Projects is free. Selected artists receive artist fees in line with NAVA standards, along with installation and curatorial support.

More info - bneart.com /

29/09/2026

- Exhibition in Brisbane

Brisbane Portrait Prize 2026
Until November 8
State Library of Queensland

The Brisbane Portrait Prize celebrates the stories and lives of the people of Meanjin/Brisbane, showcasing the talent of Brisbane artists and the breadth of Brisbane life. Each year, artists are invited to look closely at the people around them and consider the faces and personalities that make up the city, from the familiar to the extraordinary.

The Prize encourages excellence and creates opportunities for artists to explore contemporary portraiture and storytelling in the digital age. It supports artists at every stage of their careers through mentoring, peer and public recognition, and career development.

The exhibition also explores questions of identity, sovereignty, belonging and visibility, alongside more intimate considerations of what it means to be truly seen in an age of rapidly developing technology and what we carry from those who came before us.

Exhibition Open Hours: Monday–Friday, 9am–5pm; Saturday–Sunday, 10am–5pm.

Admission: Free.

More info - bneart.com /

Image: Anne Smerdon — Self Portrait, oil on canvas, 42 × 42 cm

28/09/2026

- Artist Call Out

Open Cut Commission
Deadline: 16 October

Applications are now open for the Broken Hill City Art Gallery’s Open Cut Commission 2027.

The Open Cut Commission invites artists, creatives and researchers from across Australia to develop new work, undertake research and engage meaningfully with the distinctive cultural, environmental and social landscape of Broken Hill and the Far West.

The opportunity is open to practitioners working across a broad range of disciplines, including visual art, ceramics, photography, writing, performance, sound, moving image, interdisciplinary practice and research.

The successful applicant will receive $6,000 to support the development and delivery of their proposed project. The resulting work will be presented at Broken Hill City Art Gallery between August and October 2027.

More info - bneart.com /

15/09/2026

- Exhibition in Brisbane

Sybil Curtis: Abandoned and Renewed
2 - 19 September
Woolloongabba Art Gallery

Abandoned and Renewed is a new body of work by Sybil Curtis examining energy, fire and the industrial systems that have transformed the Australian landscape.

The exhibition considers the relationship between fire and energy, from the direct use of fire through the burning of wood and fossil fuels to the generation and distribution of electricity through networks of power lines across the landscape.

Fire is the product of energy produced by the sun. For thousands of years we used fire directly by burning wood and fossil fuels. Industrial societies have harnessed this energy by generating electricity and distributing it through a grid of power-lines which march across our landscapes.

My early paintings were often based on coal-fired power stations and heavy industry which were massive, sculptural and symbolized modernity. Today fossil fuels are being replaced by renewable wind and solar energy. The original infrastructure associated with coal-power generation is being repurposed or abandoned.

Most of the paintings in Abandoned and Renewed are based on the remnants of industrial infrastructure around Lithgow, west of the Blue Mountains. The old Blast Furnace is now a tourist attraction. And the site of Wallerawang Power Station is being redeveloped for multiple purposes including battery storage. One of its elegant cooling towers has been preserved for posterity.

All my paintings are constructs where different elements are combined to produce a coherent artwork. Abstract qualities are of prime importance.

More info - bneart.com /

Image: Sybil Curtis, The Damage is Done 2026, Oil on canvas, 90 x 120 cm

05/09/2026

- Exhibition in Brisbane

(In)Sight is an immersive installation by Kuweni Dias Mendis and Grant x Wilkes that explores perception, representation and the relationship between seeing and being seen. Mirrors fracture perspective, screens shift with changing images, and handmade objects create a sensory environment where light becomes both instrument and subject.

The collaboration brings together Dias Mendis’ use of natural materials and elemental processes with Grant x Wilkes’ exploration of image-making across analogue and digital forms. Building on their award-winning collaboration at the 2025 Brisbane Portrait Prize, the exhibition extends their experimentation into representation, materiality and the unstable nature of images.

The installation changes as audiences move through it, with reflections, images and light responding unexpectedly to position and attention.

Opening Night:
6:00pm, Thursday 27 August

Ritual Performance and Artist Talk:
3:00pm, Saturday 19 September

Gallery Hours:
Monday–Wednesday: 10am–5pm
Thursday–Friday: 10am–6pm
Saturday: 2pm–6pm
Sunday: 9am–12:30pm

More info - bneart.com

17/08/2026

- ARTIST CALL OUT

Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award
Deadline: 6 October

Entries are now open for the Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award 2026, a biennial $50,000 non-acquisitive award celebrating excellence in realistic portrait painting.

Presented by the South East Centre for Contemporary Art (SECCA), the award is one of Australia’s major portrait prizes and is distinguished by its commitment to realism. Eligible works must depict a living person known to the artist, who is aware of and has participated in the portrait-making process. Abstraction is not permitted.

More info - bneart.com

Image: Joe Blundell, Today was a good day (detail), Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award 2024 finalist.

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