Anthropologist John Carty casts his eyes over the last ten years of writing on Desert art, mostly in newspapers, and finds many cliches and inconsistencies. He asks: "Where are the fine-grained localised art histories, the rich biographies of our most interesting and important individual artists? Where are their voices?" And replies: "They are still waiting in the Desert."
odradek is a window exhibition space at the Australian Experimental Art Foundation in Adelaide. nungaodradek is a season of works by four emerging nunga (Aboriginal) artists based in South Australia curated by Ali Gumillya Baker. Their overall theme is sovereign protest.
Curator: Julie Gough Artists: The 1491s, Ólöf Björnsdóttir, Trudi Brinckman, Darren Cook, Rebecca Dagnall, Sue Kneebone, Nancy Mauro-Flude, Jeroen Offerman, Perdita Phillips, r e a, Keren Ruki, Christian Thompson, Martin Walch, Siying Zhou Long Gallery, Salamanca Art Centre, Hobart 14 March – 28 April 2013
Ghost nets are fishing nets that have been abandoned at sea, lost accidentally, or deliberately discarded. The GhostNet Project, which began on islands and in communities around the top of Australia, uses the nets to make artworks, to raise awareness of marine pollution, to be creative. Awareness of Ghostnets is on the rise both nationally and internationally.
Napolean Oui is a Cairns-based, mid-career, Djabugay artist and a proud advocate of the rainforest art style unique to Far North Queensland. 2012 was a breakthrough year for him, he did a residency at Studio PM with Paul Machnik and others in Montreal, developed new work at Djumbunji Press for a solo show at Kickarts Contemporary Arts in Cairns during the Art Fair, AND sold work to the National Gallery of Australia.
Curator and writer Karen Dayman fills in the background of the development of the work and broadens the profile of Great Sandy Desert artist Jimmy Pike whose skills took him around the world and into collaborations with Desert Designs, with his partner Pat Lowe and with the theatre.
Assistant Curator of Indigenous Heritage Collections at the Macleay Museum Matt Poll writes a thoughtful, engaging and detailed account of the life and art of Harry Wedge, known as 'Big H' in his home community in Cowra. Poll says:" Harry’s artistic career remained an enigma to those closest to him throughout his life. His work is an exemplary case of an Australian outsider art – though not in the conventional definition."