Sharon Adamson, the great-granddaughter of the late Tiger Palpatja, is an emerging painter who works from Tjala Arts Centre. Juggling the dual demands of artistic commitment and recent motherhood, the artist has felt the career struggles of working from a remote community in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. Yet Adamson’s paintings are now heading to Sydney as part of the first exhibition in APY Art Centre Collective’s new gallery space.
“The APY Art Centre Collective was established by the elders to support regional collaborations and artists,” says APY Collective manager Skye O’Meara. “These are the only vehicles of employment in the community. They are places where culture is celebrated in community and elders instruct younger generations.”
After five years of planning, the organisation is now opening the first Anangu-owned gallery in Sydney.
As O’Meara points out, “Of that 500, there are less than 100 that have gallery representation, so the gallery is really trying to create what the ARI does for non-Indigenous artists; it’s a launching platform, a space for special projects and a space for early-career artists to have their first show.”
As an Indigenous owned and operated enterprise, the APY Gallery will provide agency for Indigenous artists, while also working towards future sustainability. “The space allows us to overcome the challenges of living in a remote and isolated environment,” explains O’Meara. “What they elders want for the young people is to shore up the sustainability of their art centres.”
Spanning a range of mediums, the show speaks of the stories that artists have learned from grandparents and senior women and men.
Overall, O’Meara hopes the gallery space will prompt better understanding and appreciation of Indigenous arts centres and their vital functions. “Art centres are the ethical model in our industry,” she says. “The Indigenous art industry has been fraught with opportunism and individuals that are taking advantage, and we hope to be able to give art-lovers a clear understanding of the different models in the industry so they can support art centres and support Aboriginal artists with the knowledge that the artists are being paid and that the money is being returned to community.”
Malatja Tjutangku Ara Irititja Kunpungku Kanyini – Old Knowledge, Young Blood
APY Gallery
23 March – 30 April
65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art is an extraordinary account of the unique art of this continent, published alongside a landmark exhibition at the Potter Museum of Art. Necessary and urgent, it tells the story of Indigenous Australian art; a new art history unlike anything we’ve seen. For Jane O’Sullivan, it’s a remarkable and must-read book.
In a new series of illustrated postcards available as a free gift with purchase only at the Art Guide Bookstore, Oslo Davis takes on classic and contemporary art terms and genres and reimagines what they could be referring to.
With so much to choose from, we’ve rounded up the major summer exhibitions in each capital city, open all summer long. Spanning Yayoi Kusama, Magritte, the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, and many more.
Past meets present in Leyla Steven’s latest exhibition, now showing at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and co-curated by Artspace. The Australian-Balinese artists adopts a collaborative approach to restitution, scrutinising the systems of conservation and documentation we have inherited.
Isaac Julien’s 2022 video work Once Again…(Statues Never Die) exposes the unseen emotional registers inherent to the struggle for colonial repatriation by mapping the places where poetics and politics intersect.
Josina Pumani’s electric ceramic work Maralinga—recently recognised at the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards— deftly excavates a long-hidden past.
