Behind the Art Rockhampton Museum of Art

Artist Julie Fragar speaks with RMOA Director Jonathan McBurnie about her show Biograph, which was also curated by Jonathan.


Biograph is the first career survey of Fragar’s work. Mapping more than twenty years of practice, the exhibition assembles key works made between 1998 and 2021, including some previously unexhibited. The survey is arranged according to key ongoing themes for the artist, including biography, memory, identity and narrative. This major retrospective of Fragar’s distinctive style will tour between galleries in Queensland.

Hamish Sawyer speaks with Emily Wakeling about the Bayton Award 2023.

Hamish Sawyer is a curator, writer and currently the
Artistic Director of NorthSite Contemporary Arts, Cairns.

Anitha Menon talks with Easton Dunne about her practice and inspirations from the RMOA collection during her time as artist in residence at the museum.

Pat Hoffie speaks with Jonathan McBurnie about her involvement in the WrestleMANIA exhibition. Hoffie discusses the biblical influences, as well as that of outsider artist Henry Darger, in her large scale paintings. Touching upon her artistic process, Brisbane’s Festival Hall (once a key venue for pro wrestling for Queensland) and conspiracy theory, Hoffie offers fascinating insight into studio practice.

Locust Jones speaks about his large scale drawings made for WrestleMANIA. Jones’ pieces are made as realtime responses to the global news cycle, and circumnavigate the artist’s sense of outrage, the absurd and tragedy, trying to make sense of the static. Jones discusses his early experiences of televised wrestling during his New Zealand childhood and incorporating its larger-than-life iconography into his larger-than-life drawings.

Erica Gray speaks about her textile installation exhibited in WrestleMANIA. Gray plays with the theatrical, performative aspects of Wrestlers and their audiences to create a vivid representation of the (melo)drama of wrestling.