Congratulations to Vicki Yatjiki Cullinan, who has won the $100,000 Hadley’s Art Prize for her work Ngayuku Ngura (My Country).
The senior Yankunytjatjara artist from Indulkana Community in South Australia has a 20-year practice spanning painting, printmaking and drawing. The winning piece, made from acrylic on linen, is a hauntingly beautiful depiction of Country.
“My painting is connected to the Tjukurpa (Ancestral Stories) that I know, but also my paintings are an extension of who I am, and how I interpret my place in the world.”
“I paint my Country, the beautiful and powerful Yankunytjatjara Country that I live on and that will always be a part of me,” says Cullinan. “My painting is connected to the Tjukurpa (Ancestral Stories) that I know, but also my paintings are an extension of who I am, and how I interpret my place in the world.”
Cullinan was chosen from 30 finalists, with the judging panel saying, “Cullinan’s work knocked us out at first glance and just kept giving. The longer you look at it, the better it gets. The work does not reveal all its secrets at once. Like the Country, it is vibrant and alive. We were all drawn to Cullinan’s work and found it utterly fascinating. This year’s Hadley’s Art Prize is incredibly high-quality and diverse, with entrants from every state and territory. It was a privilege to spend time with each of the artworks and encourage everyone to visit the Finalists’ Exhibition.”
The finalists exhibition is now open at Hadley’s Orient Hotel in Hobart, and runs until 20 August.
Suggested Reading
The ceramics of the Central Desert
Developed in 2022 by Artback NT as part of Apmere Mparntwe—the Australian Ceramics Triennale— touring exhibition Clay on Country, showing now at New England Regional Art Museum, showcases the diversity of ceramics in the Central Desert.
Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen
About Face mirrors the alluring world of contemporary portrait painting
About Face is a smart piece of marketing. The new book on portrait painting from Australia and New Zealand has a mission to change buyers’ minds about the field. But as Jane O’Sullivan discovers, any sales pitch wears thin if it’s repeated often enough, and the close attention to how portrait painting is received by the market means that other important conversations fade to the background.
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Elizabeth Mbitjana Pitijana and inherited influence
In Anmatyerr artist Elizabeth Mbitjana Pitijana’s first solo exhibition in Melbourne—which focuses on the Central Desert food source Arnwekety (bush plum)—the influence and love of her Country and culture is palpable. Elizabeth Mbitjana Pitijana is now showing at Niagara Galleries.
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A compact but rewarding monograph that delves inside Natalya Hughes’s layered practice
Natalya Hughes has a conflicted fascination with modernist men like Freud, Kirchner and de Kooning. Jane O’Sullivan takes a look at The Interior, the Institute of Modern Art monograph on her recent practice, and discovers difficult and provocative questions about not just the representation of women in art and culture, but also the careers of women artists in Australia.
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Melbourne Art Fair announces 2025 line up
Melbourne Art Fair has announced its 2025 line up, with 60 galleries and Indigenous art centres slated to feature alongside some major international commissions and public programs.
Art Guide Australia
Can the nude become the artist? Interview with Julie Rrap
In a conversation with Lauren Carroll Harris for her survey exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Julie Rrap discusses 40 years of challenging the male gaze, and the cultural invisibility of the ageing female body.