In 2013 Shirley Macnamara began to make skullcaps, reminiscent of a customary funerary practice for some Aboriginal women where their heads were plastered with white clay or burnt gypsum to form a cap, covering their hair completely. The wearing of this cap could extend for some time after a death, with successive coatings making it…
Continue reading » “‘Skullcap’ honours Australian servicemen”
A new exhibition of Indigenous art takes movement, both literal and figurative, as its theme, inspired by the well-known song of the same name, ‘Get Up, Stand Up’ features ceramics, sculpture, etchings, photography and painting by artists across Queensland whose works are underpinned by the desire for engagement and justice. ‘It’s not all that glitters…
Continue reading » “Get up, stand up: Queensland Indigenous art”
Though Australia’s link with the land is strong, and the ways in which we’ve used it have largely determined the Australian character, our interaction with the land is often contested. Here, we gain insights into works that respond to mining in Queensland. Mining in Queensland For Indigenous Australians, the land is everything. Through their care,…
Shirley Macnamara is a fibre artist with a significant career dating from the mid 1990s. Her work Wingreeguu 2012 is a woven sculptural installation based on traditional Indjilandji/Dhidhanu Alyawarre spinifex shelters. Macnamara spoke to Diane Moon about her work. Shirley Macnamara | I live on a cattle station which I run with my son and…
Indjalandji artist Shirley Macnamara weaves the Queensland desert landscape into the very fabric of her work, creating exquisite sculptural forms and vessels from spinifex and other natural materials. Anneke Silver offers a personal reflection on the artist’s practice and explores how her works evoke both the resilience and the colours of the environment they spring…
Continue reading » “Shirley Macnamara: Respect, balance and belonging”
From the Gallery’s contemporary collection of Indigenous Australian paintings, weavings and sculpture comes a new exhibition, featuring works from north Queensland, Tasmania, the central and western deserts and Western Australia’s Kimberley coast that reflect vast distances, differences and commonalities. The land and its natural features can wield powerful aesthetic and cultural influences: knowledgeable and sympathetic…
Continue reading » “Terrain: A landscape of ideas and possibilities”
We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art stands and recognise the creative contribution First Australians make to the art and culture of this country.