Art that needs a closer look

Wed 2 Apr 2025

Spanning both the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), the artists in ‘The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ consider knowledge and tradition in its many forms while developing their own approach to storytelling. They do this by creating their own unique and innovative style.

With so many works on display — more than 500 by 200 individuals — we look closely at five artworks to unravel the stories, uncover their deeper meaning, and look closely at the detail.

Wardha Shabbir

Along with its role as a centre for miniature painting, the city of Lahore itself has shaped Wardha Shabbir’s practice over many years. Trained in this highly disciplined genre, she continues to draw on its conventions while creating works that experiment formally and conceptually beyond the framework of miniature painting. She carefully documents the city’s common trees, natural vegetation, and gardens where nature is subdued and curated, and is drawn to Lahore’s sharp yellow light, which she uses in her paintings alongside other distinctive tones.

In Paths to Portals 2024 (illustrated & detail), fences stand as metaphors for the boundaries affecting women’s lives. The wild shrubbery reflects the struggles women face, and pathways reference the Islamic concept of ‘sirat’ to reflect the artist’s own journey as a woman living in Pakistan. Shabbir is also drawn to the mysterious energy and amoeba-like forms of black holes found throughout the universe, and the way they create a veil surrounded by radiating or burning edges.

Muhlis Lugis

Printmaker Muhlis Lugis’s large-scale woodcuts explore his cultural heritage by reflecting and recontextualising aspects of Bugis customs, philosophy and mythology. Grounded in the teachings and culture of the Bugis community of South Sulawesi, his meticulous compositions reaffirm the significance of cultural practice and identity amid the ever-changing landscape of Indonesian society.

For the Asia Pacific Triennial, Lugis presents a series of traditional ancestral stories from a contemporary Bugis perspective. Throughout his 'Sangiang Serri (Goddess of Rice)' series of works, Lugis illustrates significant events and rituals dedicated to the rice goddess detailed in the influential epic Bugis narrative La Galigo.

Sangiang Serri (Entertaining the Sangiang Serri) 2021 (illustrated & detail) portrays the Buginese Mappadendang ritual, a joyful performance of gratitude for abundant harvests. An important expression of cultural identity, the ceremony consists of beating a lesung (mortar) and alu (pestle) in dendang (rhythm) to produce a beat pleasing to the goddess, which forms the musical accompaniment to the Padendang dancers. The observance of Mappadendang is a significant community gathering of unity and cultural celebration

Varunika Saraf

Varunika Saraf references a range of historical worldviews, mythologies and art histories as a means to navigate today’s political and social situations. Her works examine contemporary realities of marginalisation, social injustice and proliferating violence, particularly in response to recent events in India.

The process of making her own colours is an important part of Saraf’s works. She creates pigments and develops watercolours from specially sourced materials, meticulously crafting colours that reflect her feeling towards the subject she paints.

Thieves in the forest 2024 (illustrated & detail) sees Saraf focus her attention on the threat of environmental extraction, alluding to broader issues of politicised violence and social complacency. The painting captures a lush forest inhabited by creatures, spirits and mythological figures. Armed officers, land surveyors, flag bearers and gangs carrying political placards encroach on the perimeter of the forest, threatening anything in their way. Saraf seeks to uncover the social and political systems that perpetuate violence toward nature, and the cultural damage that occurs in their wake.

William Bakalevu

William Bakalevu discovered his passion for painting at 37 years of age, after relocating from Fiji’s Suva city to his ancestral village of Nakorolevu. Inspired by local history and daily life, Bakalevu began creating domestic murals to visually document village stories. This endeavour marked the beginning of his lifelong dedication to retelling local legends and proverbs through art. Bakalevu has continued to refine his innovative use of texture and vibrant hues to recontextualise Fijian legends, blending narrative and emotion through new symbols and techniques.

For the Asia Pacific Triennial, a collection of Bakalevu’s works is on display which spans the past decade of his practice and highlights his distinctive style. Viavia 2024 (translating to Wannabe) (illustrated & detail), explores the Fijian proverb ‘Eda Ika kecega, is eda dui nubunubu’, which likens people to fish dwelling at different depths. In this piece, Bakalevu reflects on his unique artistic journey, acknowledging his desire to explore new directions while remaining deeply rooted in his cultural heritage.

Rithika Merchant

Rithika Merchant’s ethereal worlds are born from her consideration of how narratives, myths and ideas resonate across different peoples, cultures and religions, and how these shared stories inform our imaginings of the future. Her illustrations speculate on what might happen as the world becomes less habitable for humans, and what new worlds, creatures and relationships might then evolve. The artist’s fantastical worlds are inhabited by curious beings, whose evolution, values, beliefs and technologies Merchant carefully develops.

For the Asia Pacific Triennial, Merchant’s most recent series ‘Terraformation’ with Temporal Structures 2023 (illustrated & detail) follows her beings as they leave their planet and begin terraforming their new homes — that is, shaping new planets to be more habitable. Drawing on scientific, fictitious and mythological ideas, each work in the series acts as a proposition for sustaining life in a new world.

Edited extracts from the publication The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, 2024

Art that needs a closer look
Asia Pacific Triennial
30 November 2024 – 27 April 2025
Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA)
Brisbane, Australia
Free entry