JUNE 2024
AMALA GROOM’s and ANDREW BURRELL’s ‘can’t buy me love’ is currently showing until the 29th June at ISEA2024 EVERYWHEN in Meanjin (Brisbane) during the 29th International Symposium of Electronic Art.
Presented through the lens of virtual reality, ‘can’t buy me love’ is an immersive experience that purports to sell the audience the intangibility of spiritual enlightenment. It brings “reality” into a space that is “unreal” and where the item that is for sale is one that cannot be bought. ‘can’t buy me love’ was developed with support from The UTS Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building and the UTS Faculty of Law and as part of the 2021 UTS Artist in Residence Program.
More info here
AMALA GROOM’s collaboration with Nike was showcased at Mudgee Arts Precinct in Mudgee New South Wales. Amala’s artwork was made in consultation with and written support from “do it” curator Hans Ulrich Obrist. Named after an amalgamation between the Nike slogan coined by Dan Wieden (deceased 2022) of the advertising firm Wieden and Kennedy, ‘JUST DO IT’, and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist’s ongoing international instructional art project ‘do it’, this work seeks to act as an invitation for the audience to participate in sharing the legacy of Wiradyuri culture to follow their feelings over their intellect. "The answers to everything are in our culture".
BILLY BAIN is for the second year in a row a finalist in the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales with a work titled “The Fighters”.
‘In the wake of the referendum and with ongoing global conflicts pertaining to colonisation, I have found that art has been my coping mechanism,’ says two-time Wynne finalist Billy Bain. ‘This group of characters embody the unwavering intergenerational fighting spirit of First Nations peoples, particularly the grassroots physical protestors that I have encountered since moving into the city.’
The work will be displayed at the AGNSW until the 8th September.
More info here
ROBERT FIELDING is a first time finalist in the Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales with a work titled Mayatja (keeper of song and culture). Robert Fielding’s subject, Tuppy Ngintja Goodwin, is a senior Pitjantjatjara Elder and artist committed to passing on her Aṉangu cultural knowledge. She was a finalist in the 2023 Wynne Prize.
‘Ngintja is my nanna, a cultural leader, a boss, an artist and a storyteller. She has been a teacher to our kids, a teacher to me. She is a person of beauty, power and significance, passing on tjukurpa (story) and inma (songs)’. The work will be displayed at the AGNSW until the 8th September.
More info here
ROBERT FIELDING is also a finalist in the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales with a work titled Nganampa Manta which represents an expanse of country found on the edge of Mimili within the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in South Australia. Robert Fielding, a first-time Wynne and Archibald Prize finalist, has returned to this place many times over the past 30 years. ‘When I first moved to Mimili, I was just learning my culture’s ways,’ says Fielding. ‘This was a place from which I could watch, observe, learn, and sit in silence, listening to country, listening to inma (ceremonial song and dance), watching from afar.’
The work will be displayed at the AGNSW until the 8th September.
More info here
ROBERT FIELDING’s exhibition titled NYARU, curated by Erin Vink and Aimee Frodsham, is currently on display until the 21st July at Canberra Glassworks. In the words of curator Aimee Frodsham, NYARU is “...a two-year collaboration resulting in a residency and the exhibition (Nyaru) and would be a continuation of his work with cars salvaged from Country. The title reflects Fielding’s desire to look forward as well as acknowledging the past – he sees the regrowth on burnt-out country. Fielding’s collaboration with Canberra Glassworks would also provide an opportunity to include Erin Vink (Ngiyampaa) as our Writer in Residence. Vink and Fielding have a trusted and deeply connected working relationship. She joined Fielding in Canberra and together they inspired each other and worked side by side. This convergence of talent, enthusiasm, and drive to share stories would result in the creation of this remarkable body of work and catalogue".
More info here
BETTY CAMPBELL is a second time finalist in the National Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (Natsiaa) in Darwin. Now in its 41st year, the exhibition will be on display from 22nd June 2024 until 27th January 2025 with the awards ceremony and official opening to be hosted on 9th August.
More info here
December 2023
To all of the artists, collaborators, collectors, curators and institutions who have supported Blackartprojects throughout 2023, we thank you and wish you a safe and happy holiday season.
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It’s flamin hot darl is a large-scale commission painting by Wiradjuri artist Bethany Thornber. For Thornber, the banks of the Milawa are a formative place of key memories like fishing for Yellow Belly in the belting heat to the soundtrack of Cicada song. It's flamin' hot darl is her mum’s warning of summer heat and snake season as they played under ghost gums. The commission has been made possible through funding from the Australian Government’s RISE program and Destination NSW, and is on view at Murray Art Museum Albury (MAMA) through to 10 March 2024. Further details here
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Billy Bain’s ceramic installation Dog Walker is included in the exhibition New Dog Old Tricks at Ngununggula. New Dog Old Tricks explores themes of bravery, loyalty, and compassion through the emotional and complex nature of dogs. Artworks of renowned artists Jeff Koons, William Wegman, Aleks Danko, and Del Kathryn Barton are featured, alongside Bain’s installation and other newly commissioned artworks by David Griggs, Guido Maestri, Jason Phu, Julia Gutman, Madeleine Pfull, Marc Etherington, Todd Fuller, Nadia Hernández and Noel McKenna. The exhibition runs to 4 February 2024 at Ngununggula, Southern Highlands Regional Gallery. Further details here
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Robert Fielding will take part in the Perth Festival at John Curtin Gallery in WA with an exhibition titled Kinara munu Tjintu (Moon and Sun) that will showcase his diverse practice through photography, print and video, revealing a complex and intertwined relationship with the spirit of the land. The exhibition is free and runs 9 February - 15 April 2024. Further details here
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The quarterly magazine Artlink has dedicated the cover page of its Summer issue to Robert Fielding. Titled Indigenous Working Voices, Robert discusses his practice with Lisa Slade, the assistant Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia. Further details here
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Amala Groom has completed her residency in the inaugural Bunurong Fieldwork residency at McClelland. The residency program aims to develop the artists’ skills and capacity in public art, and to deliver major creative outcomes. Groom stayed at McClelland’s studio cottage during the last quarter of 2023, developing detailed concept proposals for a permanent site-specific public artwork. Further details here
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Tristan Chant will be showcasing new works in Naarm/Melbourne early next year. The title of the exhibition will be Actual Psychic Pollution (Saudade) and is based on Chant’s continual experimentation and dialogue about our relationship to images and the way in which we consume them.
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Blackartprojects returns in 2024 with a solo presentation of works by Betty Campbell at Melbourne Art Fair. Betty Campbell has lived her entire life in Mimili, South Australia. Campbell’s work holds women’s story and inma (song and dance). A lot of this story is secret, only to be known by initiated women; however, there are some storylines that can be celebrated by all. Campbell paints the kulpi tjuṯa (many caves), tjukurla tjuṯa (many rock holes) and karu tjuṯa (many riverbeds) that spread across Paralpi. As a senior cultural leader of Mimili, she recognises the importance of taking young people to Paralpi to camp and dance inma, to learn and keep tjukurpa kunpu (strong).
Image: Beth Thornber, It's flamin hot darl, installation view, Murray Art Museum Albury, 2023. Photo: Jeremy Weihrauch
November 2023
To celebrate the acquisition of Billy Bain’s artwork ‘Blak men can’t surf,’ Artbank has invited Darug artist Billy Bain to curate their Sydney Window. Bain’s arts practice challenges ideas around social, political and cultural representations of Australian identity. His work often references Australian surf culture, using humour to question the stereotypes that much of this nationalistic iconography is built on. With a practice that spans ceramic sculpture, oil painting, etchings and installations, Bain creates new narratives that discuss a contemporary idea of what it means to be a young Indigenous person in Australia today. Join the artist at Artbank in Sydney together with senior curator Oliver Watts on Thursday November 30 to celebrate. Further details here
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Billy Bain has been awarded the 2023 FBi SMAC Award winner for Artist Of The Year. A contemporary indigenous artist working in both 2D and 3D, Bain’s practice is informed by personal experiences of conflicted cultural duality as a Darug man, presenting us an opportunity to decolonise spaces and question representations of so-called Australianness. Further details here
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Congratulations to Kate Stevens who has been awarded the 2023 Portia Geach Memorial Award, for her painting titled ‘The Whistleblower’, a portrait of David McBride who is facing trial this month over the alleged leak of documents to the ABC that formed the basis of its “Afghan Files” investigation about potential war crimes by Australian soldiers.
From the Sydney Morning Herald: Stevens, who also won the richest annual portrait prize for women in 2011, said that “The timing is brilliant. With David’s trial date set for November, the first Australian facing prison time in relation to war crimes [potentially] committed by Australia’s Special Forces in Afghanistan, is the whistleblower brave enough to speak out. Australia needs to do more to protect our whistleblowers so that uncomfortable truths continue to be revealed and the powerful are held to account. David is being prosecuted, and we should all care about what he did and thank him,” Stevens said in accepting the award.
Read the full Sydney Morning Herald article here
Image: Betty Campbell on Country, courtesy of the artist and Mimili Maku Arts.
October 2023
Congratulations to Robert Fielding who has been announced as one of the finalists of the 2023 Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize at the Bendigo Art Gallery. The exhibition will be on display from 25 November 2023 until 18 February 2024. Further details here
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Robert Fielding delivered a keynote address at the official public launch of Tarnanthi Festival at the Art Gallery of South Australia.
‘Our future was never yes or no, it is not black or white, this way or that way.
This year has demanded every bit of energy and spirit our communities have, and still we bring you this exhibition [Tarnanthi]. Still we keep our communities together, still we look to the future, still we rise...
This journey is never over. We don’t go home saying: Oh well, we tried. We don’t go home to our families and give up. We can’t.
We keep walking the routes carved out by our Elders. We keep pushing for a better future. Malatja-malatjaku. [For those who come after.]
And we do it together – with you… We are all in this together, and we shall continue to rise – together.
Now, let’s celebrate the rising of Tarnanthi. Palya [Good].'
- Robert Fielding, keynote address Tarnanthi Opening, 2023
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Congratulations to Bettie Campbell who has been announced as one of the finalists of the 2023 Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize at the Bendigo Art Gallery. The exhibition will be on display from 25 November 2023 until 18 February 2024. Further details here
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Congratulations to Amala Groom, who was announced the recipient of the Moonee Valley Mayoral Award for her artwork 'Found'. The exhibition runs to 19 November, 2023 at the Incinerator Gallery, Aberfeldie, Naarm / Melbourne. Further details here
Image: Robert Field, Tarnanthi opening address, courtesy of Art Gallery of South Australia. Photo: MIchael Jalaru Torres
July 2023
Wiradyuri conceptual arts and cultural practitioner Amala Groom will present her durational work RED TAPE, where Groom corporeally negotiates the bureaucracy of the imposition of third-dimensional reality on her spiritual and physical bodies by singing a song in Wiradyuri, wrapping herself in 44 rolls of red electrical tape and then jumping through a hoop.
Co-curated by Samantha Watson-Wood and Katie Winten, Performance Contemporary presents a diverse program of experimental and ephemeral performance works by some of Sydney’s most exciting contemporary artists at the Sydney Contemporary. Artists in the 2023 program use the body as a medium to explore key social, cultural and political ideas. Sydney Contemporary runs 9-12 September at Carriageworks, New South Wales. Further details here
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Amala Groom has been announced a finalist in the 2023 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize. The acquisitive prize celebrates and explores the full potential of the small sculpture format, and remains a cherished program of the Woollahra Municipal Council. The exhibition of finalists will run 27 September to 5 November at the Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf, Sydney. Further details here
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Amala Groom has been announced a finalist in the Incinerator Art Award 2023, a nationally recognised exhibition dedicated to the theme of Art for Social Change. The exhibition will run from 6 October - 19 November at the Incinerator Gallery, Aberfeldie, Victoria. Further details here
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Billy Bain has been announced a 2023-2025 Artist in Residence at Parramatta Artists’ Studios in Rydalmere, New South Wales. Further details here
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Tristan Chant has been announced a finalist in the 2023 Waverley Art Prize in Bondi, Sydney. Established in 1986 and open to painting, drawing, print and mixed media from emerging and mid-career artists, the finalist exhibition will be held at Bondi Pavilion from June 30 to August 13. Further details here
Image: Amala Groom, Red Tape, 2016, durational performance, approx 15 min Documentation: Sam Whiteside and Leslie Liu
June 2023
In Changing Tides, airing on ABC for Compass this Sunday 2 July, surfer, artist and Dharug man Billy Bain takes us on an immersive road trip along Australia’s iconic eastern coastline to capture the shifting conversation on our nation’s path. Heading north we face the truths of our frontier injustices, while witnessing Saltwater Peoples reclaiming culture, community, and Country. Further details here
Available for viewing on ABC’s iview here
Image: Surfer, artist and Dharug man Billy Bain grew up on Garigal country where the Pacific Ocean meets the Hawkesbury River and says he's always felt a deep connection to the ocean. (ABC Matt Davis)
May 2023
We are delighted to announce the Art Gallery of Ballarat’s acquisition of Robert Fielding’s work Nganampa Manta (Our Country) from his recent exhibition Nganampa Tjukurpa. This is the first of Fielding’s work to enter the collection, and will be installed in the rehang of the gallery’s permanent collection later in 2023. Visit the Art Gallery of Ballarat here
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Tristan Chant has been announced a finalist in the 2023 Nilumbik Prize for Contemporary Art, awarded every two years to emerging and established artists working in any medium across Australia. The exhibition runs to 11 June at the Barn Gallery, Montsalvat, Victoria. Further details here
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Guest curated by David Hagger, Iwara (Pitjantjatjara for ‘tracks’) is a survey exhibition spanning a decade of Robert Fielding’s practice, currently on show at Wyndham Art Gallery. It extracts works from his oeuvre that illustrate the breadth of his capacity as creator and narrator, giving light to the reason he has exhibited widely in state, national and international galleries and institutions. The exhibition runs to 30 July, with a curator floor talk being held on Saturday 22 July from 2:00-4:00pm. A video walk through of the exhibition can be found here
Image: Robert Fielding, Nganampa Manta (Our Country), installation view, May 2023. Photo courtesy of David Hagger.
April 2023
Congratulations to Billy Bain, announced a finalist in both the Sulman and Wynne Prizes at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Bain’s practice unpacks and challenges presumptions of Australian Identity, subverting and humouring Australia’s colonial iconographies and narratives. This is the first time Bain has entered the prizes. Further details here and here
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Robbie Rowlands’ Responding is a permanent public artwork for the Great Victorian Rail Trail Art Installation Project. The $1.2M project, funded by the State Government’s Regional Tourism Investment Fund, is a joint project between Mitchell, Murrindindi and Mansfield Shire Councils that aims to increase trail usage by attracting visitors to the region and providing local economic benefit. It features seven large artworks and a series of smaller works along the length of the 134km rail trail.
Responding consists of a 39m mobile phone tower that gracefully arches over the rail trail. In their usual display, phone towers sit at heights well above the landscape or our built environments. Here, the tower appears animated, falling close to the ground as if bowing to meet us. In this way, the technological function of transmission – of receiving and responding to signals – becomes a personal interaction between the viewer, the artwork and the landscape. With its slender taper and gentle curve, the tower appears more organic than industrial, like a stalk of field grass with its long, thin signal panels mimicking seed pods fraying at their tips.
Further details and video footage here
Image: Robbie Rowlands, Responding, April 2023. Photo courtesy of Nigel Karikari.