Eight emerging First Nations artists will present ambitious new work in the exhibition My Country opening March 22 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia.
Unique in the Australian cultural landscape, the Country Road + NGV First Nations Commissions is a national mentorship program and exhibition series that invites an artist from every state and territory to produce a significant new work under the guidance of an esteemed mentor.
Invited by the NGV to participate in the commission, the mentors nominated an emerging artist for the year-long mentorship opportunity which includes guidance through the conception, creation and delivery of a major work that in its first iteration responds to the theme ‘My Country’.
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Outcomes range across a diversity of media, including textiles, customary cultural objects and large-scale paintings to installations that engage glass making and new modes of fabrication.
The aim of the commission series is to acknowledge and nurture the creative relationships between artists and their mentors around the country.
The mentorship is structured to reflect and champion the storytelling and knowledge-sharing systems that exist within First Nations communities.
Working out of Iwantja Arts in Indulkana, South Australia, Alec Baker and Eric Barney have produced two large collaborative paintings, titled Ngura (Country), that are as rich in their hues of red, pink, orange and yellow as they are in their embodiment of sacred stories and customs.
Tiwi artist Johnathon World Peace Bush, also widely known as Jon Jon, has produced a body of work that tells of Tiwi culture, storytelling and history.
Jan Baljagil Gunjaka Griffiths’s work Tree of knowledge, which depicts the native gerdewoon (boab tree), is made of ceramic hand-painted boab nuts, a four-metre-high ochre on paper painting of a gerdewoon and a soundscape of Griffith’s poetry.
For Canberra-based artist and Walgalu and Wiradjuri man Aidan Hartshorn the commission was an opportunity to pursue new mediums in his practice and build upon his ongoing Masters research into the impact of the Snowy Mountains Scheme on Walgalu Country.
Gamilaroi weaver and textile artist Sophie Honess has produced three woven rugs titled Daruka — grass, water, granite.
Boonwurrung and Barkindji man Mitch Mahoney has created two bark canoes, a red gum canoe and a river reed canoe, and was guided through proper cultural processes and protocols by Barkindji artist David Doyle including learning collecting bark for the canoe and healing the tree with mud.
Cheryl Rose, a Pataway-based (Burnie, Tasmania) multimedia artist, explores the fragmented stories of her country, culture and community through a wall-based installation titled fragments.
Brisbane-based Kamilaroi man Warraba Weatherall is mentored by Girramay/ Yidinji / Kuku Yalanji man Tony Albert.
His new work builds on his PhD research into the impact of systems of colonial bureaucracy and linguicide on contemporary society.
Mentors participating in the program include Vincent Namatjira OAM, Peggy Griffiths, Jonathan Jones, James Tylor, Pedro Wonaeamirri, Maree Clarke and Denise Robinson.
“The Country Road + NGV First Nations Commissions creates a major new platform for First Nations art and design in Australia,” Director of the NGV Tony Ellwood AM said.
“The unique mentorship format — the only one of its kind in Australia — offers career-defining opportunity to emerging practitioners to create a new work under the guidance of a mentor.
’‘We’re grateful for the support of Country Road for this important new initiative. This mentorship program has enabled NGV to cultivate important new relationships with First Nations practitioners across the country.
“With the eight works entering the NGV Collection, this commission will enhance our ability to represent and profile our rich and diverse Indigenous communities.”
To learn more about the artists, their mentors and the works, visit the Country Road website here.
