Bio Tags
A Lycett for Christmas
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 2014-12-18 15:08:56
A delightful project has emerged from the National Library in Canberra and the University of Newcastle's Wollotuka Institute of Aboriginal Studies. “True Light and Shade” takes the early 19th Century artworks of that infamous forger Joseph Lycett and sets them...» Read More
PETER BROKENSHA OAM 12/10/26 TO 24/06/14
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 2014-09-20 18:45:51
“He was a good man who did good things”, assessed Bob Edwards, long-time friend, one-time employer and a partner with Peter Brokensha in early efforts to turn the nascent Aboriginal art movement into a viable business. Coincidentally, the Pitjanjatjara people...» Read More
GULPILIL'S COUNTRY
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 2014-07-11 13:55:17
I've often said that the major problem with the Intervention – and all the hyperventilation about the reported spate of child abuse and domestic violence in remote Aboriginal communities that justified the imposition of its quasi-military rule – was that...» Read More
GORDON BENNETT 1955 to 3 June 2014
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 2014-06-28 13:39:11
“I am an Indigenous Australian. My mother is an Indigenous Australian and her mother before that and so on for countless generations. My father was English. My work comes out of small town and suburban Australia. I was socialised into...» Read More
27TH MERREPEN ARTS & CULTURAL FESTIVAL
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2014-04-29 15:39:50
The Daly River community (Nauiyu), 240 kilometres south-west of Darwin, celebrates the 27th Merrepen Arts and Culture Festival from Friday 30 May to Sunday 1 June, with a weekend of traditional and contemporary performance, colourful designs, fashion and fabrics, art...» Read More
Entries now open for the Victorian Indigenous Art Awards
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2014-04-26 14:55:59
The Victorian Indigenous Art Awards (VIAA) celebrate the quality and diversity of art practice among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and the richness of Victoria's Indigenous arts and culture. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists are invited to submit an...» Read More
TRAGIC CONFRONTATION IN THE DESERT
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 2014-04-08 12:47:32
Anyone reading the usually-reliable Nicolas Rothwell in The Australian newspaper a couple of weekends ago (The Review 22/23 March) in a major essay entitled 'Culture War', would have come away convinced that an exhibition designed to reveal the extent of...» Read More
The Marvellous Frannie Hopkirk joins the Aboriginal Art Directory
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2014-02-16 10:35:38
We are delighted to announce that Frannie Hopkirk has joined the Aboriginal Art Directory as a Feature Writer for our News. For those who don't know, Frannie is from one of Australia's most pre-eminent art families, the Whiteley's - she is...» Read More
THE DEALER IS THE DEVIL
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 2014-02-13 08:19:23
Adrian Newstead is probably uniquely qualified to write a history of that contentious business, the market for Australian Aboriginal art. He may once have planned to be an agricultural scientist, but then he mutated into a craft shop owner, Aboriginal...» Read More
Frannie Hopkirk
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2014-01-01 00:04:01
Frannie is from one of Australia's most pre-eminent art families, the Whiteley's - she is Brett Whiteley's sister, both having grown up amidst Australian art royalty. Frannie twice sat for William ('Weppy') Pidgeon, a family friend, before Brett's ascent, each portrait...» Read More
NAMATJIRA IN LONDON
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 2013-11-28 09:11:34
The third generation of the Namatjira family water-colour artists from Hermannsburg - Kevin and Lenie Namatjira - yesterday had a private audience with the Queen at Buck House in London. This follows the presentation of their grandfather and an example...» Read More
MYSTERY ROAD
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 2013-10-05 13:46:57
Has the brilliant Ivan Sen watched 'No Country for Old Men' just one too many times? For this ultimate omnimath, the Indigenous writer/ director / cinematographer/ editor/ composer who totally captured the anomie of life on the endless plains west...» Read More
Winner announced for the $25,000 Kate Challis RAKA Award 2013
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2013-08-15 12:27:43
One of Australia’s most cherished Indigenous artists, Mabel Juli, has won the $25,000 Kate Challis RAKA Award 2013 for her refined, minimal painting Garnkeny Ngarranggarni (Moon Dreaming). A respected Gija elder, 80-year-old Mabel travelled from her home at Warmun in the...» Read More
HEARTLAND IN SA
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 2013-07-17 10:48:22
As South Australia lead the cultural way in the 70s when Don Dunstan emerged as the first Aussie politician to recognise the value of the arts to the soul and economy of his people, so the Art Gallery of SA...» Read More
EMILY ON SALE
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 2013-03-18 23:26:40
It's a fascinating time for the reputation of the great Emily Kngwarreye. Some time in May a whole museum is opening in Melbourne dedicated to her works from the collection of Hank Ebes, a major dealer during the later years...» Read More
JEAN-BAPTISTE APUATIMI
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 2013-02-20 15:31:15
The deaths go on! Yet another senior artist has been taken from us with the announcement today that Jean Baptiste Apuatimi has died on Bathurst Island at the age of 72. Only last week, the death was reported of Jack Dale...» Read More
First Aboriginal and TSI Playwriting Festival in Sydney for 20 Years
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2013-01-18 13:14:40
The first Aboriginal playwriting festival in Sydney for over two decades. Yellamundie: National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Playwriting Festival is a landmark writing event which will take place over two weeks from 27 January 2013. The Festival brings together...» Read More
Unique Indigenous story teller awarded
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2012-11-26 12:13:57
Indigenous writer, poet and story teller Herb Wharton has been awarded the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature; a $50,000 award that recognises the achievements of eminent writers who have made outstanding and lifelong contributions to Australian literature....» Read More
Gambarra Yasi (Cyclone Yasi) Exhibition
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2012-11-13 10:55:44
This exhibition will feature a collection of small artworks created by Cyclone Yasi workers, volunteers and artists in the wake of the cyclone in 2011. The art centre doesn't know who all the Yasi works were created by, as the...» Read More
People On Country
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 2012-10-16 17:58:52
Do you remember the ending to that great Indigenous film, Samson & Delilah? The damaged couple set up home in the middle of nowhere – a remote outstation where they could live off the country and recover their moral and...» Read More
TJUKURRTJANU GOES TO PARIS
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 2012-10-08 15:25:06
The big NGV exhibition Tjukurrtjanu – Origins of Western Desert Art ( 'Aux Sources de la Peinture Aborigene') opens in the Musee du quai Branly today. It's the first Australian art show at the museum – which opened...» Read More
CAT AMONGST THE PIGEONS
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 2012-06-28 14:14:02
This weekend in Sydney, two free discussions about Aboriginal art are likely to set the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons. Both are at the Opera House on Saturday and involve leading Blak players in the art game. Session One, particularly,...» Read More
Mabo adheres to the first principles of biography
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2012-06-10 17:26:52
THE good biographer assumes nothing, trusts no one, checks every detail but never lets a good story escape. The best are always alert for what literary critic Peter Steele once called "riddle, quizzicality and quirk". Biography, like historical romance, must...» Read More
Lives hidden in the life's work
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2012-05-21 09:30:36
THE looped chains of brilliant colour, the radiating line-work, the grids and vortex patterns -- they speak of a personality, and a strong one. At last, six years after her death, the dazzling Warlpiri artist Lorna Fencer Napurrurla is the...» Read More
KOONGARRA
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 2012-02-16 15:45:57
In June 2011, Jeffrey Lee travelled from remote Arnhemland to Paris to meet with UNESCO officials. As the last surviving member of the Djok Clan, he was attempting to get his precious country at Koongarra added to the World Heritage...» Read More
TJUKURRTJANU – THE ORIGINS OF WESTERN DESERT ART
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 2011-11-18 11:06:53
There's a tremendous tension around at the moment between those who want to show Aboriginal art as 'great contemporary art' and those who want to try to understand its mysteries and complexities. And this is sadly all-too-apparent in the yawning...» Read More
NAATSIA's 25TH ANNIVERSARY BOOK
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 2011-06-27 10:31:57
Is a silver anniversary any more important than a 20th or a 17th? I ask because the Museum & Art Gallery of the NT (MAGNT), the Darwin home of the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award has belatedly...» Read More
Passing of Thancoupie
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 2011-04-29 17:18:12
It is with great sadness that AAN learnt of the passing this week of Dr. Thancoupie Gloria Fletcher AO, best known simply as Thancoupie the Potter. She died aged 74 at Weipa Base Hospital on Cape York after a...» Read More
Discovery of Living Pigments in Bradshaw rock art
Posted by Jeremy Eccles | 2011-01-04 15:35:40
The age of Bradshaw rock art (also called Gwion gwion) is uncertain but estimated by indirect methods at between 46 000 years ago, based on the time of extinction of depicted live megafauna, and 70 000 years ago, which is...» Read More
Victorian Indigenous Art Awards
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2010-11-26 11:14:00
The Final Countdown - Deadline for Entries Tomorrow Are we all feeling it? The deadline looming so, so close. Not to worry, we all have up to 5pm Friday 26 November (that’s tomorrow) to post your entries to the Victorian Indigenous...» Read More
Politics of the Secret
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2010-09-21 20:12:55
Rumors that Vivien Johnson was writing a history of painting at Papunya have been reaching my ears for a long time now. When the publication of Johnson’s Lives of the Papunya Tula Painters was announced in 2008 by IAD...» Read More
Tracking the stories of Indigenous art
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2010-08-29 22:05:51
Storylines -- the first comprehensive assessment of Indigenous artists from urban Australia is being launched this week. The three-year Australian Research Council project brings together biographical information about the artists on a website, completing a full picture of Aboriginal art in...» Read More
Storylines website goes live
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2010-07-29 03:42:24
Storylines explores Indigenous art making outside of ‘remote’ Aboriginal Australia. Storylines was a three-year (2007-2009) ARC funded survey of ‘non-remote’ Indigenous artists. You can read our findings by clicking on the images below for individual topics or download the complete report. The...» Read More
Papunya and Balgo exhibitions at the National Art Museum of China - promotion of Australia’s rich cultural heritage
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2010-07-22 23:11:12
Extraordinary collections of Indigenous art from Australia’s remote deserts are now on display in Beijing. The highly regarded Papunya Painting: Out of the Australian Desert and BALGO: Contemporary Australian Art from the Balgo Hills collections collectively form the National Art Museum...» Read More
Joining the Dots: The Sustainability of the Aboriginal Art Market
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2010-07-14 23:17:45
On top of the symposium I’m co-convening at the University of Melbourne next week, with speeches by the Minister for the Arts, Peter Garrett, 2010 Archibald and Wynne winner Sam Leach, and other venerable members of the visual art community,...» Read More
Council bans Aboriginal street artists — racist or just dumb?
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2010-06-07 01:42:50
An essential read from Bob Gosford about street art in Alice Springs: I’ve been out of town for the past month and on my first day back I wandered down the local mall and noticed that the Aboriginal street artists, who...» Read More
Aboriginal art makes the long trek to China
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2010-05-19 22:11:42
From the Australian: The works are large and bold. Most were created in the central Australian community of Papunya in the 1970s when the Aboriginal art movement was starting to gather pace. In Canberra yesterday, some of those early pieces were being...» Read More
Mapping Me - Call for Artists
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2010-04-27 08:03:31
Mapping Me: A Landscape of Women's Stories Editors: Orchid Tierney and Tamara Azizian We are seeking submissions in any artistic format (photography, painting, sketching etc) from indigenous women for a new anthology project titled, "Mapping Me, a Landscape of Women's Stories." By...» Read More
Flawed vision cops pasting
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2009-09-06 07:07:49
THE widow of painter John Brack is ambivalent about it. Wendy Whiteley says in theory it is a good thing. Gallery owner William Mora, who has an enduring interest in the paintings by his artist mother, Mirka, says while he...» Read More
Mediating Forms: The Spiritual and Personal Dimension of Yolngu Portraiture
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2009-04-06 02:52:37
Date: April 6, 2009 Time: 6:00 p.m. Speaker / Performer Dr. Howard Morphy Description Mr. Howard Morphy will present the John W. and Maria T. Kluge Distinguished Lecture in Arts and Humanities. Dr. Morphy argues that the presence of a person and attributes of...» Read More
Blemishes mar a sumptuous history of Australian art
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2009-01-10 08:24:15
In 1886, there was a tussle for control over the future direction of Australian art. At its heart the dispute appeared simple, but it highlighted a deep division. A student of the School of Art in Melbourne, Alice Chapman, was...» Read More
Launch of Written in the Land: the Life of Queenie McKenzie
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2008-11-25 01:21:13
I would first like to acknowledge the traditional owners of this land. And I want to acknowledge the contribution made by Argyle Diamonds – the first major company to make Aboriginal employment a priority and a supporter of the book. And Peter...» Read More
Blayney's Nyree finalist in state art prize
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2008-09-16 15:16:32
Last week Blayney community artist Nyree Reynolds found out she had just missed out on having her artwork adorn the cover of the next telephone book for the region. However, as some consolation, one of her works has been short listed...» Read More
ACPACS Seminar: Art and Politics in Melanesia
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2008-09-08 13:25:07
Political crises and social upheavals galvanise artists to give vision and voice to people’s concerns. In Melanesia, as elsewhere, art is an active agency that draws attention to issues of human rights and assists people to make sense of complex...» Read More
Mount Leibig and Utopia
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2008-08-07 02:03:12
Following on from a Sell-out Show in London, Senior Watiyawanu (Mount Liebig - 325 kms west of Alice Springs) Artist, Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri is headlining an Exhibition of new works from his Community at Japingka Gallery. At around 85...» Read More
More than dreaming: bringing to light a blaze of beauty
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2008-06-11 00:09:42
Nicolas Rothwell from Nicolas Rothwell examines the changing face of Australian Indigenous art scholarship and criticism. Quoted from the article: Much about Aboriginal art is complex, and lends itself to specialisation, formal probes and technical examination, and the result of such involved...» Read More
Artist Slideshow featuring Mervyn Rubuntja
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2008-04-16 05:02:39
Mervyn Rubuntja was born at the Telegraph Station in Alice Springs. His mother was a Western Arrernte woman. His father was the famous painter, the late Mr. W Rubuntja Pengarte. His father has been an important role model for Mervyn. He...» Read More
Forging a language of emotion
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2007-12-27 06:33:15
The Australian Forging a language of emotion Nicolas Rothwell December 27, 2007 Quoted from the article: A little more than a year ago, the style of Makinti Napanangka, queen of the Western Desert's Pintupi painters, began to change. The trademark yellow and white arcs of...» Read More
Aboriginal Art + Modern Architecture
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2007-12-14 07:51:23
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Dafna Zilafro, Dafna@spfa.com P: 310.558.0902 AUSTRALIA CONTEMPORARY Aboriginal Art + Modern Architecture Opening Reception – January 18, 7PM -11 PM Exhibit Remains Open Throughout January JANUARY 2008, Culver City, CA - This January, MODAA Gallery at SPF:a celebrates Australia Week with...» Read More
Mission Times
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2007-11-23 12:51:32
Mossenson Galleries Subiaco is delighted to present Mission Times, an exhibition of new paintings by Pauline Moran representing her time as a child on the Roelands Mission. The exhibition will be opened by Diana Warnock, Former Member for Perth and...» Read More
The Australian: the desert's tainted brush
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2006-09-11 06:36:35
As the Aboriginal art community struggles against a growing culture of fraud, one group of desert artists is taking a stand, writes Nicholas Rothwell A thread of rich, autumnal colours, fit for the burning season, runs through the latest Desert...» Read More
Recent Works By Ramingining Artists
Posted by Aboriginal Art Directory | 2000-07-12 05:12:00
Coo-ee Gallery in association with Bula'Bula Arts Aboriginal Corporation presents an exhibition of recent works by Yolngu artists from Ramingining, NT. Featured in this exhibition are several works by young relatives of the late Dr David Daymirringu and George Malibirr, alongside...» Read More
