Carol McGregor, black seeds 2016, Possum skins, cotton, ochre, ash and resin, Redland Art Gallery Collection. Acquired in 2016 with Redland Art Gallery Acquisition Funds. Courtesy of the Artist. Photography by Carl Warner.
Paul Bong (Bindur Bullin), Under the canopy of the rainforest our shopping baskets, 2016, hand coloured intaglio etching 6/30, Redland Art Gallery Collection. Acquired in 2018 with Redland Art Gallery Acquisition Funds. Courtesy of the Artist. Photography by Carl Warner.
Delvene Cockatoo-Collins, Bungwall nuts ground into flour, 2017, Paper, pigment, beeswax and charcoal. Redland Art Gallery Collection. Acquired in 2018 with Redland Art Gallery Acquisition Funds. Courtesy of the Artist. Photography by Carl Warner.
Penny Evans, Blue swamp banksia 2, 2017–2018, White earthenware clay, copper carbonate, black slip, pooling glazes, translucent glaze, sgraffito and terracotta, Redland Art Gallery Collection. Acquired in 2018 with Redland Art Gallery Acquisition Funds. Courtesy of the Artist. Photography by Carl Warner.
Elisa Jane Carmichael, Coolamon #3 2017, Raffia, Redland Art Gallery Collection. Acquired in 2017 with Redland Art Gallery Acquisition Funds. Courtesy of the Artist. Photography by Carl Warner.
“Country always calls me back,” says Penny Evans. “I love the drive and I feel it when I cross into our ancestral Country. As I leave Country on my way back to Lismore, I instinctively feel where I cross and I’m off Country again. Going to specific locations where I know my ancestors were born, and specifically my grandmothers, that Country sings to me.”
Evans, whose Gamilaraay homelands are a day’s drive from her studio, is one of eight Aboriginal artists in Seeing Country, a group exhibition that seeks to highlight Indigenous knowledge and insights into natural ecologies.
This theme is particularly evident Evans says, in her ceramic vessels titled Silver Bullets, 2018. These works are a response to the “shocking state of our rivers everywhere, but particularly in the northern basin which affects every level of our discrete ecologies.” And, she explains, her title “refers to a solution which has always been there, but unfortunately colonisers don’t listen to: our ancestor’s land management skills, deep knowledge, and understanding of environment and ecologies through time immemorial relationships to Country and kin.”
In her own practice Evans describes taking her ceramic works to specific locations and “arranging, embedding, hanging, resting, intermingling, submerging and sometimes losing pieces in the landscape.” For her, this process of dadirri – ‘deep listening and observance’ promotes healing as well as learning. “I’ve come to understand the importance of ceremony for continuation, increase and ecological health.”
Held in conjunction with NAIDOC Week and curated by Freja Carmichael, Seeing Country features work by Paul Bong, Elisa Jane Carmichael, Delvene Cockatoo-Collins, Belinda Close, Penny Evans, Carol McGregor, Kim Williams and Philomena Yeatman.
Seeing Country
Redland Art Gallery
30 June—1 September
In their debut solo exhibition Extinguishing Hope, now showing at UTS Gallery, Akil Ahamat uses darkness—both literal and metaphorical—to examine what can be gained when everything is lost.
Existing in the space between ritual, performance and ceremony, the body-centred work of Latai Taumoepeau rewrites the stories that shape our perception of Oceania—while using ancient traditions to tackle our most urgent modern concerns. Taumoepeau is now participating in Re-Stor(y)ing Oceania at Artspace.
Congratulations to Aisha Sherman-Noth, who has won the 2025 Glover Prize for Weeping birches on the avenue. The Tasmanian-based artist wins $80,000 for the painting, which depicts weeping birch and poplar trees along the Brooker Highway into Hobart.
In his latest exhibition, now showing at Bett Gallery, Postmodern painter and writer Imants Tillers is influenced by a variety of sources including the metaphysical style of Italian artist Georgio de Chirico.
When times are hard, we often turn to art to remind ourselves that beauty and hope persist. An exhibition at Murray Art Museum Albury brings together nine artists from varied disciplines to examine how art can be used as an agent for good.
French-born/Belgium-based Laure Prouvost animates her first major Australian survey with her hallmark absurdism. ‘Oui Move In You’ is a touring exhibition, and is now showing at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art.
