Behind the Art

Gemma Smith’s practice tends to be series-based, which slowly moves along a continuum of colour and surface that belies an abiding fascination with the exploration of media. Each series, or perhaps approach is the better descriptor, seeks to resolve a specific set of visual problems, pushing back against its own context, whether tenets of high Modernism, hard-edge abstraction or abstract expressio...

While Edward Ruscha is often remembered specifically for hisdeadpan text works and incredible drawing and painting abilities, he has alsoindulged in many side projects that explore his obsessions — signage, California and the built environment—inunexpected ways. Perhaps his most famous book work, Every Building on theSunset Strip (1966) reflects these fascinations, making use of the artistbook, an...

John Baldessari is not an artist one might commonly associate with notions of intimacy. In fact, much of his work deliberately obscures personal details and symbols, disassociating the artist from romantic conceptions of the artist as a bard-like revelator of truth, mining emotion and pathos to reveal the inner self, or an essential humanity. However, Baldessari’s artist book Fable:A sentence of t...

Carrol Jerrems’ photographic practice is simultaneously timeless and a time-capsule that depicts her all-too-brief adulthood in the 1970s. That timeless quality comes from the incredible closeness and intimacy depicted in her subjects, some of whom were friends and acquaintances. Jerrems also explored a gently performative self-portraiture adding another register of melancholic intimacy to her wor...

My painting practice explores self-portraiture as both protagonist and antagonist in a symbolic theatre of inner duality. Each work becomes an introspective confrontation, where the surreal imagery I meticulously render serves to externalise the fragile dialogue between self-destruction and self-realisation. By inserting my own presence into these compositions, I position consciousness itself as p...

I am an avid collector of magazines and second hand books. They are my main source material from which I obtain inspiration and ideas for my paintings; I enjoy spending a considerable amount of time looking through my collection, and finding the “right” images. The magazines are predominantly women’s fashion magazines. Whereas, the books generally feature two main separate subjects: the natural wo...

‘Immensity is within ourselves. It is attached to a sort ofexpansion of being that life curbs and caution arrests, but which starts again when we are alone. As soon as we become motionless, we are elsewhere; we are dreaming in a world that is immense. Indeed, immensity is the movement of motionless man. It is one of the dynamic characteristics of quiet daydreaming. The house, from cellar to garret...

Over the years different subjects have been the focus of myattention. Cars, roadside signs, motorbikes and their riders in Indonesia, ‘Big Things’, shoes abandoned in the streets, discarded chairs and bollards to name a few. Reflecting on this growing list of subject matter I can see patterns in the choices I have made but perhaps they are not always obvious to others. While the central motif in t...

I seek to create images that tell a story of the landscapes,flora, and fauna of Queensland's north, weaving together rich layers that reflect the environmental narratives of my surroundings. Inspired by the foreshore on the fringe of the built environment in Townsville's North Ward, I want to tell the story of the local elements, such as the black cockatoos thatvisit the Beach Almond trees...

Intimacy brings together artists who practices align with the personal, the internal and the profound, to create an experience that will stay with the viewer long after they leave the exhibition. With a flood of images available at the swipe of a finger in the modern life of mass media and consumer culture, Intimacy favours form and size, with works that packan emotional punch encouraging audience...

Artist, Wendy Mocke, in conversation with Dr Melinda Mann, First Nations Art Officer at RMOA in 2025. Mocke's work is on display in State of the Art: Reimagining Queensland from 19 July - 12 October 2025. The exhibition is an introspective and memory-honouring consideration of Queensland. Showcasing Queensland artists, it contests and explores the idea of the State in all of its conceptual and...

Artist, Wendy Mocke, in conversation with Dr Melinda Mann, First Nations Art Officer at RMOA in 2025. Mocke's work is on display in State of the Art: Reimagining Queensland from 19 July - 12 October 2025. The exhibition is an introspective and memory-honouring consideration of Queensland. Showcasing Queensland artists, it contests and explores the idea of the State in all of its conceptual and geo...

Artist, Danish Quapoor in conversation with Shanna Muston, Curator at RMOA in 2025. Quapoor's work is on display in desolate vessels exhibition on display 23 August 2025 - 26 January 2026. Danish Quapoor has memorialised suspended moments within the cyclical timeline of death, grief and regrowth.  desolate vessels  are devoid of physical contents, yet metaphorically filled with personal lament...

Artist in Residence, Louise Lawrence, in conversation with Helen Kavanagh. Learn more about Lawrence's four week residency at RMOA and how works from the Collection inspired new directions in her artistic practice. About Louise Lawrence Currently Lawrence resides in Mount Morgan on Ghungalu Country. Since encountering yellow fireclay on her property and its links to the historic gold mine bric...

Artist, Darren Blackman, in conversation with Nickeema Williams, First Nations Art Assistant at RMOA in 2025. Blackman's work is on display in State of the Art: Reimagining Queensland from 19 July - 12 October 2025. The exhibition is an introspective and memory-honouring consideration of Queensland. Showcasing Queensland artists, it contests and explores the idea of the State in all of its concept...

Join Dr Melinda Mann, First Nations Art Officer at RMOA, for a conversation with writers Daniel Kielly-Davis, Kusangalala Mkoka and Melissa Mills. Learn about how these three Central Queensland-based creative writers were commissioned to write and perform a poem in respose to D Harding's artwork, ‘Wall Composition on Darumbal’ (25 February 2022 - 20 July 2025), and listen to them read their poetic...

Artist, Remy Faint, in conversation with Dr Melinda Mann, First Nations Art Officer at RMOA. Faint's work is on display in Artists in CQ: Of the Region   from 5 April - 3 August 2025. The exhibition brings together the art practices of several artists, presenting a multi-disciplinary conversation about national identity and the acknowledgement of Asian cultures as an enduring component of Australi...

Learn more about artist Phoebe Paradise in this conversation with Jonathan McBurnie. Phoebe delivered two workshops at RMOA during 2025 and her work, FORTRESS, was exhibited in Maximum Madness at RMOA in 2024. About Phoebe Paradise Phoebe Paradise is a multi-disciplinary artist, musician and designer based in Brisbane, Australia; specialising in illustration, murals and public art installations. ...

Artist in Residence, Gail Meyer, in conversation with Helen Kavanagh. Learn more about Meyer's four week residency at RMOA and how works from the Collection inspired new directions in her artistic practice. About Gail Meyer Meyer is a Rockhampton-based artist with a practice spanning more than 20 years. Meyer’s relationship to her hometown Rockhampton, Central Queensland, on Darumbal Country, cont...

Artists in Residence, LeLarnie Hatfield and Joanna Joy, in conversation with Dr Melinda Mann, First Nations Art Officer at RMOA. Learn about how Hatfield and Joy's collaborative film project took inspiration from RMOA's Collection during their residency. About LeLarnie Hatfield and Joanna Joy LeLarnie Hatfield and Joanna Joy are collaborating on a project that seeks to turn the written works of po...

Artist in Residence, Ainslie McMahon, in conversation with Easton Dunne. Learn more about McMahon's art practice and her four week residency at RMOA. About Ainslie McMahon  Ainslie McMahon is an artist based in Rockhampton on Darumbal Country whose work responds to the natural environment and the effect of nature on the human psyche. McMahon describes her work as being defined by a strong connecti...

Artist in Residence, Jodie van de Wetering, joins Easton Dunne for a conversation discussing their four week residency at RMOA. Learn more about how artworks selected from the Collection inspired the play that they worked on throughout their residency. About Jodie van de Wetering  Jodie van de Wetering is a writer, performer and generator of creative chaos based on Darumbal Country in Rockhampton....

Hear from artist Ken Done as you wander through the  KenDone: Poems from Home and Other Paintings  exhibition.

Hear from artist Ken Done as you wander through the  Ken Done: Poems from Home and Other Paintings  exhibition.

Hear from artist Ken Done as you wander through the  KenDone: Poems from Home and Other Paintings  exhibition.