Michelle Holmes Wins People’s Choice Award

Aboriginal Art Directory | 08.11.13

Ampilatwatja artist Michelle Holmes has been voted the People’s Choice Award winner as part of this year’s 30th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award.

The 45-year-old artist received 121 votes of the 1781 votes cast for her painting, My Country, acrylic on canvas, which depicts the country she lives on.

Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) Director Pierre Arpin congratulated Ms Holmes on her win.

Mr Arpin said My Country was one of 77 works featured as part of the 30th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award that has so far attracted an audience of more than 53,580 visitors since the exhibition opened in August.

“My Country is a visually spectacular painting full of vibrant colours that easily draws a viewer towards it and I suggest that’s this is why it proved to be so popular,” Mr Arpin said.

“I congratulate Ms Holmes for her People’s Choice Award and remind everyone that this year’s 30th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award exhibition concludes this Sunday.”

Canberra artist Jenni Kemarre Martienello won the $40,000 Telstra Award in August for her glass entry Golden Brown Reeds Fish Trap.

In addition to the Telstra Art Award, $4,000 prizes were awarded in five other categories:

• Telstra General Painting Award – Mavis Ngallametta (Queensland) for her work Yalgamunken #3 which tells the story of her community life and country in a unique and vibrant style that marries abstraction with elements of figuration
• Telstra Bark Painting Award – Malaluba Gumana (Northern Territory) for her work Dhatam which invites audiences into country and sings with the sinuous lines of waterlily stems and clean and refined crosshatching skilfully revealing part of the Wititj (Rainbow Serpent) story
• Telstra Work on Paper Award – Teho Ropeyarn (Queensland) for his work Apudthama which strengthens and reinforces the story of unity of the four clans of the Injinoo area of the tip of Cape York
• Wandjuk Marika Memorial 3D Award (also sponsored by Telstra) – Rhonda Sharpe (Northern Territory) for her work They Come From Nowhere which features soft-sculpture alien spirits – Sad, Worried, Frightened and Hopeful – telling a captivating story that resonates with the realities of town camp life
• Telstra New Media Award – Raymond Zada (South Australia) for his digital projection Sorry which examines the complexities of Australian history and disconnect between language and reality.

Now in its 30th year, the Telstra Art Award is the longest-running art award dedicated to the work of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, and has come to be regarded as one of the premier national events on the Australian Indigenous art calendar.

Artworks in this year’s exhibition are featured in an online gallery and on an interactive website www.nt.gov.au/natsiaa, which offers users from around the world the opportunity to view moving images of this year’s artworks and listen to recordings of the stories behind the works that are available through a virtual online gallery.

As part of this year’s 30th anniversary celebrations, 50 artworks from the Telstra collection, including works from this year’s winners, will be made accessible to an even bigger and international audience through an exciting new collaboration with the Google Art Project.

Since launching in February 2011, the Google Art Project (www.googleartproject.com) has given people around the world access to more than 40,000 works selected from collections held across 261 museums worldwide including Tate Britain, Museum of Modern Art, The Van Gogh Museum, The National Gallery in London, the National Gallery of Australia and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney.

The 30th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award exhibition will be on display at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory until Sunday, 10 November 2013.

The 30th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award is supported by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.

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