Spanning performative videos, sculpture, sound and installation from the past 20 years, including a wealth of new works, ‘Once We Were Mudskippers’ emphasises the aesthetic ambition of Justene Williams’s expansive practice. Like the amphibious fish invoked by the exhibition’s title, which exist between worlds, Williams’s artworks are an amalgam of materials and approaches and remain grounded in art history while reflecting contemporary issues.
Adopting a do-it-yourself strategy, Williams fuses disparate textures and concepts into compelling artworks that speak to her belief that our shared future can be forged with resources at hand and transformed by the imagination. Williams’s artworks address ideals of beauty, careerist and consumerist pressures, the strangeness of living in both the physical body and virtual space, and human connections to rituals and the afterlife.
‘Once We Were Mudskippers’ is characterised by Justene Williams’s unwavering conviction that art is a world where artists and audiences can experiment and commune.
Image: Justene Williams, Queensland Australia b.1970 / Crystal whisperer 2026 (installation view, ‘Justene Williams: Once We Were Mudskippers’, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2026) / Found chandelier, found clothes rack, vinyl, lights / Supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland and the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body / Courtesy: Justene Williams / Photograph: N Umek © QAGOMA /
