Maree Clarke: Ancestral Memories is a retrospective and celebration of Melbourne based contemporary artist, and Mutti Mutti, Yorta Yorta, BoonWurrung/Wemba Wemba woman, Maree Clarke. The exhibition highlights Clarke’s prolific career in the arts, spanning over 30 years across a variety of media, from jewellery, to photography, film, glass, large scale installation, hologram and more. It is also the first exhibition at NGV by an artist who is ancestrally connected to the lands on which the gallery is built.
If you don't find yourself in Melbourne for the exhibition, the NGV has a virtual tour which takes you through all the incredible works on display. CLICK HERE for more information.
Found and Gathered: Rosalie Gascoigne I Lorraine Connelly-Northey brings attention to the shared materiality at the heart of the practices of New Zealand born Rosalie Gascoigne and Waradgerie contemporary artist, Lorraine Connelly-Northey. Both women are artists who are known for their transformative use of found and discarded objects to create works of art that challenge our understanding of the landscape, and Country.
If you don't find yourself in Melbourne for the exhibition, the NGV has a virtual tour which takes you through all the incredible works on display. CLICK HERE for more information.
Bark Ladies, opening night. Courtesy of the artists and NGV International. Photo: Liz Sunshine.
Bark Ladies: Eleven Artists from Yirrkala concluded the year, opening at NGV International in December. This show celebrates the NGV’s extraordinary collection of work by Yolŋu women artists from Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre (Buku), in North-East Arnhem Land. The exhibition includes works by Yunupiŋu sisters Nancy Gaymala, Ms N Yunupiŋu, Gulumbu, Barrupu, and Djerrkŋu, as well as never before displayed works by Noŋgirrŋa Marawili, Dhambit Munuŋgurr, Mulkun Wirrpanda, Dhuwarrwarr Marika, Malaluba Gumana, and Naminapu Maymuru-White.
Further highlights include:
Murrŋiny: a story of metal from the east, exhibition catalogue, 144 pages, 2021. Courtesy of Salon Art Projects.
Further exhibition highlights for me in 2021 include Murrŋiny: A story of metal from the east, presented by Salon Art Projects. Murrŋiny is the Yolŋu word for steel, and this unexpected show highlighted extraordinary and daring works made by men at Buku, who have only recently begun engraving customary narratives onto discarded road signs.
Kent Morris (Barkindji), Barkindji Blue Sky – Ancestral Connections #11, 2021. Digital print, on phototex wallpaper with framed glicee prints on rag paper, 1356 x 492.5 cm. Installation view, WILAM BILK, TarraWarra Museum of Art, 2021. Courtesy of the artist and Vivien Anderson Gallery. Photo: Andrew Curtis.
Wilam Biik, curated by Stacie Piper at TarraWarra Museum of Art, was a thoughtful show that highlighted a diverse group of South Eastern Indigenous artists from Australia. In the Woiwurrung language of the Wurundjeri people, Wilam Biik means ‘Home Country’, and seeing these works (including important loans by ngurungaeta of the Wurundjeri-willam clan William Barak), on display in Healesville (on Wurundjeri Country), was deeply moving.
Timo Hogan, Lake Baker. Acrylic on linen, 230 x 200 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Outstation Gallery.
Another highlight for me was Pantjutjara: Tim Hogan, an exhibition by Pitjantjatjara man Timo Hogan, presented at Outstation Gallery in Darwin, in association with Spinifex Arts Project. Hogan’s contemporary paintings tell stories that are embedded within his country. They are evocative reflections on religion within the landscape that survey an important Dreaming called Wati Kutjara Tjukurpa (Two Men Creation Line). Hogan’s work is utterly contemporary, using stark monochromatic two dimensional planes to depict ancestral snakes embedded within the land.
Installation view, Yhonnie Scarce: Missile Park, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne. Photo: Andrew Curtis. Courtesy of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.
Yhonnie Scarce: Missile Park at ACCA (Australian Centre for Contemporary Art) was another highlight for me. Missile Park was an expansive yet focused survey that included a major new commission by Scarce, which drew on research from over the past fifteen years. Scarce uses glass to explore the impact of nuclear testing following the Maralinga atomic bomb tests in 1956 and 1963, and for this important exhibition she created a series of immersive sheds that she then filled with black glass yams.
Djerrkŋu Yunupiŋu, Yunupingu The Rock, 2020. Natural earth pigments and recycled print toner on bark, 186 x 92 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Alcaston Gallery.
At Alcaston Gallery, Djerrkŋu Yunupiŋu, senior Yolŋu elder and emerging artist based in Yirrkala, dazzled audiences with her break out show I am a Mermaid, in which she used a technicolour array of synthetic pigments drawn from recycled printer cartridges to tell the story of her spiritual conception as a mermaid. This exhibition was incredibly contemporary, while also building on the rich tradition of bark painting and inherited visual languages of artists from across North East Arnhem Land.
