Platform 2026
Dean Ansell, Spencer Harvie, and Seren Wagstaff
24 January–29 March 202624 Jan–29 Mar 2026
The IMA has a reputation for bringing new art and new artists to public attention. Platform is our annual Queensland-emerging-artist exhibition. Each year we fund three artists to create ambitious new projects. This year we present new works by Dean Ansell, Spencer Harvie, and Seren Wagstaff. Discover audacious art emerging on your doorstep.
Dean Ansell is of Melanesian (Riḡorabana, Balawaia, Papua Niugini), Maltese, and Anglo-Celtic descent. They interpret Melanesian mythologies and rituals in their installations, soundscapes, and performances.
Spencer Harvie explores dark, surreal, nonsensical aspects of online and fan subcultures. Processing the slop of found, AI-generated, and imagined imagery within an elaborate cartoon logic, he unleashes the psychosexual horrors bubbling beneath.
Seren Wagstaff works in installation and performance. They explore working‑class cultures and the queer innuendoes embedded within them.
Artists
Dean Ansell (born 1997, Nambour) is a multidisciplinary artist of Melanesian (Riḡorabana, Balawaia, Papua Niugini), Maltese, and Anglo-Celtic descent, based in Meanjin/Brisbane. His work connects his
cultural heritage to material processes that harness his body and the environment. In installations, soundscapes, and performances, he interprets Melanesian mythologies and rituals. Poetically correlating inherited knowledge with his personal experiences of cultural displacement, his work expresses the complexities of his Melanesian diasporic experience.
Spencer Harvie (born 1992, Meanjin/Brisbane) is a painter whose work explores dark, surreal, and nonsensical aspects of online and fan subcultures. Blending found, AI-generated, and imagined imagery within an elaborate cartoon logic, his work exemplifies a geeky life within digital networks. He had a solo show at Milani Carpark, Meanjin/Brisbane, in 2025. He lives in Meanjin/Brisbane.
Seren Wagstaff works in installation and performance. Their works look like artefacts or evidence from a public-experiment exploring aspects of everyday regional life. They live in Gadigal/Sydney.
