Friday 15 June 2007

Tweed River Art Gallery



A wonderful exhibition of indigenous art has been on show at the Tweed River Art Gallery (TRAG) for a couple of months, but it took me till the THIRD LAST DAY to finally see it. The pictures all come from the collection held by Lawson-Menzies, the art auctioneers.

Most of the pictures in the exhibition are by artists of the East Kimberley area of Western Australia, centred around Turkey Creek (also known as Warmun). I was really fortunate in being able to visit Warmun in 2003, although we didn't visit the artists' community.

On show at the TRAG were pictures by Freddie Timms, Rover Thomas , Emily Kame Kngwarreye, and others, all dating from the mid 1990s.The picture above,'My Country', is by Emily Kame Kngwarreye, who came from the community of Utopia, in the Northern Territory. In this photo, you can see her strongly dabbing the paint on a picture. Incredibly, she didn't take up painting till she was about 80 years of age.

Very different to this exhibition was another, featuring posters from Redback Graphix . WOW!! Some really eye-catching visual arts were used to highlight political issues such as indigenous health and public housing, from the 1980s and 90s. I found it very powerful art.

2 comments:

GMG said...

Loved that Yiri Songlines Art! Spent some time seeing artists painting when in Ayers Rock...
Astonishing!

TORUĊƒ DAILY PHOTO said...

Yes...really powerful! Thanks for visiting Torun Daily Photo!