Justene Williams is in the middle of setting up her major exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery, and there are crates, cardboard boxes, ladders and piles of detritus everywhere you look.
asserted
you → set → detritus
Two silver unicorns that look like blocky Minecraft creatures stand to one side.
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that → look → side
Three life-size, cobbled together, vaguely human figures occupy a corner.
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figures → cobble → corner
A decommissioned speedboat painted fluoro orange sits on a large trolley.
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speedboat → paint → trolley
When she is finished with it, it will be standing in the QAG’s Kenneth and Yasuko Myer Gallery on eight misshapen legs.
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it → finish → legs
“I called him Darwin,” Williams says, indicating the boat, “because Darwin is actually the name of a mudskipper [Periophthalmus darwini, an amphibious fish with leg-like fins].
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Darwin → call → fins
There’s always movement in my work, and this idea of how we move and why we move
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we → ’ → work
“What’s in the boat, Justene?” prompts the publicist hovering nearby.
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publicist → ’ → boat
“I’ve got the jellyfish lady,” Williams responds.
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Williams → get → lady
“It’s a bit like a soft sculpt – oh, I hate the word soft sculpture – anyway, it’s like a costume sculpture, and it’s based on a ballet.”
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it → ’ → ballet
Williams is wearing a stripy blue pyjama-like outfit, a blue ribbon in her curly blonde hair.
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Williams → wear → hair
Her eyes twinkle as she moves about the space, talking and fossicking.
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she → twinkle → space
Her manner reminds me of the lovably mischievous Yoda of The Empire Strikes Back, before we learn the little gnome is actually a Jedi master.
“I love when something’s had a life,” she says.
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she → remind → life
“I believe that energy is stored in stuff, like that boat.
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energy → believe → boat
They’ve had a life, and you can work with that.
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you → have → that
Then I get a bit hocus-pocus, because I start to think about what people have done with them before.
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people → get → them
If Williams seems at home among the debris, it may be because she literally grew up in a wrecking yard in Bankstown, Western Sydney.
“Me and my sister, we’d hop in cars, and sometimes there’d still be a battery and the windscreen wipers would start, and you imagine yourself going off into another place …
uncertain
yourself → seem → place
I can still see the sea of metal.”
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I → see → metal
Williams got her first job at age 14 at Sportsgirl.
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Williams → get → Sportsgirl
She later worked in merchandising at Westfields across Sydney, and setting up bridal fairs.
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She → work → fairs
Today she is one of Australia’s leading multidisciplinary artists, as well as a popular lecturer in sculpture at Queensland College of Art and Design, Griffith University.
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she → lead → Art
Last year she was in the spotlight as the subject of the winning portrait in the Archibald Prize.
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she → win → Prize
Her Griffith colleague, Julie Fragar, painted her as a kind of goddess figure floating above a stack of her own art materials – mannequins, cages, funnels, bits and bobs.
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colleague → paint → materials
“There is nobody like Justene,” Fragar said in her artist’s statement.
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Fragar → be → statement
“She thinks big and makes bigger, deploying everything from car bodies to opera singers to make work as fearless and feeling as she is.”
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she → think → singers
Williams has been well known in the art world for a long time, but the Archibald proved a different level of wattage.
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Archibald → know → wattage
“It was odd,” she recalls, “because people contacted me that I hadn’t seen for a long time, out of the blue.
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I → recall → blue
‘Oh Justene, hi, do you remember me?’
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you → remember → me
“I think it was a really beautiful painting that Julie did.
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Julie → think → that
It was good for the university too, that both of us happened to be in this thing.”
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both → happen → thing
Williams was teaching at the Sydney College of the Arts when the Rozelle facility was closed and moved onto the main University of Sydney campus.
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facility → teach → campus
Many lecturers lost their jobs, and Williams was snapped up by Griffith.
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Williams → lose → Griffith
She relocated to Queensland in 2021.
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She → relocate → 2021
Brisbane’s geographical beauty, and cheaper real estate prices, thrilled her.
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beauty → thrill → her
So did the larger studio spaces.
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spaces → do → ?
Her QAG show features a hulking four-metre-high sculpture of a woman painted silver titled Sydney Sheila – “I would have never made that in Sydney.
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I → feature → Sydney
This is the chaotic rule of Williams’ art”Philosopher and critic Stephen Zepke
Sydney Sheila is not dissimilar to the five-tonne bronze sculpture she installed as part of Brisbane’s Queen’s Wharf development in 2024, with its huge pendulous breasts, permanently bemusing pedestrians between the Commissariat Store and the casino.
“Justene is one of Australia’s most interesting contemporary artists, and she very much has this belief that art is for everyone,” says Ellie Buttrose, curator of contemporary Australian art at QAGOMA.
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Buttrose → instal → QAGOMA
“She’s interested in how you can express yourself with intuition, and also with joy, and how to engage in contemporary life, and she does that through using very humble materials that anyone can access.
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anyone → ’ → that
Found objects litter Williams’ exhibition.
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objects → litter → exhibition
A coin-operated children’s shopping centre ride with two little pigs under a large mushroom will be turned into a rotating sea creature.
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ride → operate → creature
…and 28 more, not listed.
The Aporia
