The exhibition ‘North by North-West ’ at the Queensland Art Gallery presents recent acquisitions and old favourites from the Gallery’s Indigenous Australian art collection, highlighting unique visual threads and continuities that traverse the top half of the continent. Over our blog series we will delve into the exhibition themes: ‘Journey across the Northern Territory’; ‘Seven Sisters’; ‘Geometries’; and ‘The North-West’.
DELVE DEEPER: North by North-West: Indigenous Australian art
Nancy Nyanjilpayi Chapman, Manyjilyjarra people, Australia b.1942 / May Maywokka Chapman, Manyjilyjarra people, Australia b.c.1940s / Mulyatingki Marney, Manyjilyjarra people, Australia b.c.1941 / Marjorie Yates, Manyjilyjarra people, Australia b.c.1950 / Mukurtu 2010 / Synthetic polymer paint on linen / 127 x 300cm / Purchased 2010 with funds from Professor John Hay AC and Mrs Barbara Hay through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © The artists (Featured artworks hanging left to right in ‘North by North-West’) George Tjungarrayi, Pintupi people, Australia b.c.1943 / Untitled (Mamultjulkulnga) 2007 / Purchased 2008. The Queensland Government’s Gallery of Modern Art Acquisitions Fund / © George Tjungurrayi / Douglas Kwarlpe Abbott, Arrernte people, Australia b.1954 / Organ Pipes at Finke River 2009 / The Glenn Manser Collection. Gift of Glenn Manser through the QAGOMA Art Foundation 2016. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program / © Douglas Kwarlpe Abbott/Many Hands Arts Centre / Elton Wirri, Western Aranda/Luritja/Pintupi people, Australia b.1990 / Palm Valley 2013 / The Glenn Manser Collection. Gift of Glenn Manser through the QAGOMA Foundation 2016. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program / © Elton Wirri/Copyright Agency / Dellina Inkamala, Western Aranda people, Australia b.1984 / Rutjipma (Mt Sonder), NT 2021 / Purchased 2021 with funds from the Estate of Jessica Ellis through the QAGOMA Foundation / © Dellina Inkamala/Copyright Agency / Hubert Pareroultja, Arrernte/Luritja people, Australia b.1952 / Tjoritja (West MacDonnell Ranges), NT 2021 / Purchased 2021 with funds from the Estate of Jessica Ellis through the QAGOMA Foundation / © Hubert Pareroultja/Copyright Agency / Peter Tjutjatja Taylor, Southern Arrernte/Luritja people, Australia 1944‑2014 / Stanley Chasm 2006 / The Glenn Manser Collection. Gift of Glenn Manser through the QAGOMA Foundation 2016. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program / © Peter TjutjatjaTaylor/Copyright Agency / Kumantje Jagamara, Warlpiri/Luritja people, Australia c.1946‑2020 / Lightning 1998 / Purchased 1998. QAG Foundation Grant / © Estate of Kumantje Jagamara/Licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency / Kumantje Jagamara, Warlpiri/Luritja people, Australia c.1946‑2020 / Wild yam 1998 / Purchased 1998. QAG Grant / © Estate of Kumantje Jagamara/Licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency / All artworks featured are from the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Collection / Photograph: C Callistemon © QAGOMA (Featured artworks hanging left to right in ‘North by North-West’) Roy Wiggan, Bardi people, Australia 1930‑2015 / Ilma no. 4 ‑ Father lost at sea 1995 / Purchased 1997 / © Roy Wiggan/Copyright Agency / Alan Griffiths, Ngarinyman/Ngaliwurru people, Australia b.c.1933 / Balmarra, Seven Sisters 2002; Balmarra 1 2002 / Purchased 2005. QAG Foundation / © Alan Griffiths / Queenie McKenzie, Kija (Gidja)/Nakarra people, Australia 1915‑98 / Texas hills 1994 / Purchased 2000. The Queensland Government’s special Centenary Fund and the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / © Queenie McKenzie / All artworks featured are from the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Collection / Photograph: J Ruckli © QAGOMA From the Tiwi in the north to the Pitjantjatjara people of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in the south, and across to the Gija and Bardi peoples from Warmun and Broome in the Kimberley region, ‘North by North-West’ celebrates the regionally specific styles of each Country. These characteristics have often stemmed from traditional body designs and cultural objects, which were shared or traded across borders. In this display, historic artworks are contextualised by contemporary reworkings of these traditional practices.
Particular attention is paid to the trade in artistic traditions and stories through songlines. Common motifs and ancestral stories are transformed across mediums through innovative explorations of form, symbol and texture. Works range from representations of the Seven Sisters constellation to the politically engaged watercolours created by contemporary Hermannsburg School artists.
Nora Wompi ‘Kunawarritji’
Nora Wompi was born in the Great Sandy Desert at Lilbaru, close to Well 33 on the Canning Stock Route. In Kunawarritji 2011 she emphasises the metaphysical essence of this landscape rather than its visible features. Lines of tali (sand hills) and jila (circular rockholes) appear tangentially, more as a mirage than as material presences. Here, she expresses the ‘big picture’ of her Country, centred on a vital freshwater source that lies far south-west of Balgo. Wompi shares her perception of the site through pale, milky tones that recall the blinding whiteness of the salt lakes that pattern the landscape, and also suggests their deepening tones, which fade in the light of the setting sun.
Nora Wompi, Kukatja people, Australia b.c.1939-2017 / Kunawarritji 2011 / Synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen / 300 x 120cm / Purchased 2014 in memory of Margaret Mittelheuser AM through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Nora Wompi/Copyright Agency D Harding ‘What is theirs is ours now (I do not claim to own)’
In the diptych What is theirs is ours now (I do not claim to own) 2018 d harding has deployed Reckitt’s Blue — a laundry whitener that was popular during the colonial period — to comment on their personal history and the impact of settlement on First Nations peoples. The artwork demonstrates the complex ways in which harding has used the pigment. For the left-hand panel, they worked the colour into the linen support with a hand broom, an act that pays homage to their matrilineal kin who were forced into domestic servitude by European settlers. For the right-hand panel, the artist used the most expensive paintbrush they could find to stain the surface with pigment, using the same motions as they made with the broom. Their final gesture was to spit ochre from their Country across the work in a single horizontal band, in part an allusion to the rock-painting techniques of their forebears. This physical act was both an aesthetic decision and a conceptual one, marking a metaphorical shift from these laden histories towards a new phase in their practice.
D Harding, Bidjara/Ghungalu/Garingbal peoples, Australia b.1982 / What is theirs is ours now (I do not claim to own) 2018 / Reckitt’s Blue, ochre, dry pigment and binder on linen / Diptych: 180 x 480cm (overall) / Purchased 2019. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © D Harding Timo Hogan ‘Lake Baker’
In recent years, Pitjantjatjara artist Timo Hogan has developed to become one of the Western Desert’s most notable painters. Lake Baker 2021 shows Hogan’s characteristically painterly depiction of the important salt lake in his Country, Pukunkura (Lake Baker). Each of his paintings about Lake Baker translates the Wati Kutjara Tjukurpa (Two Men Creation Line) of his birthright. Hogan has depicted the men as two black and white roundels in the lower third of the composition, and explains:
These two men watch carefully as the resident Wanampi (magical water serpent) departs his kapi ngura (home in the rock hole) and becomes the fearful, the all-powerful, as he skirts the edge of the lake, always watching, aware of the Two Men. These Creation Beings came before and shaped the environment as they moved through it, leaving indelible physical reminders of their power and presence for all to see.
Timo Hogan, Pitjantjatjara people, Australia b. 1973 / Lake Baker 2021 / Synthetic polymer paint on linen / 200 x 137cm / Purchased 2022 with funds from the Future Collective through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Timo Hogan/Copyright Agency VIDEO
Katina Davidson is Curator, Indigenous Australian Art, QAGOMA
‘North by North-West’ / Queensland Art Gallery / 11 February 2023 – 2 March 2025
Acknowledgment of Country The Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land upon which the Gallery stands in Brisbane. We pay respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander elders past and present and, in the spirit of reconciliation, acknowledge the immense creative contribution Indigenous people make to the art and culture of this country. It is customary in many Indigenous communities not to mention the name of the deceased. All such mentions and photographs on the QAGOMA Blog are with permission, however, care and discretion should be exercised.
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