Compiler

Winsome Jobling, Spear grass, etching on paper with chîne coll on hand-made paper, (banana, cotton, sugar palm and gamba grass). © 2006. In Replant at the Queensland Herbarium, Mt Coot-tha Rd, Toowong, until 10 September.

More new printmaking

Jilamara: New etchings from Melville Island is being launched to coincide with the Darwin Festival and 2006 Telstra Award and will run until 13 October. The exhibition celebrates the culmination of two recent printmaking workshops held between Tiwi's Jilamara Arts and Craft and Charles Darwin University (CDU)’s Northern Editions. Artists featuring in the show include Raelene Kerinauia, Timothy Cook, Janice Murray, and Conrad Tipungwuti. Printmakers Dian Darmansjah, Leon Stainer and Jacinta Numina-Waugh conducted the initial workshop at Northern Editions in November last year. This was followed by a second workshop in March this year on Melville Island. Visit Northern Edition’s gallery at Building 33, at CDU's Casuarina Campus. Call 08 8946 6325 or visit www.cdu.edu.au/northerneditions.

At 24 HR Art…

24HR Art are continuing Noktûrne that opened last month during the Darwin Festival, until 8 September. This exhibition features new contemporary works of Indigenous artists including Dennis Nona, Gulumbu Yunupingu and Gabriel Maralgurra amongst others and also features the audio works of 'Blackfella' bands. As the title suggests, the theme of the show is an exploration of nightfall in which concepts of ceremony ritual and legend are interpreted through the use of multi-media artforms … Bronwyn Wright, an increasingly well-known photographic artist, both in the Top End and nationally, explores her unique relationship with the environment in Neverland, opening at 24HR Art on 15 September. Wright’s familiar territory of the 'swamp' is reinterpreted in images dealing with concepts of the common good in an age of terrorism mass media and human desires … Also showing in gallery 2.1 at 24HR Art is the work of KW Chai entitled Contained open spaces. Chai is the recipient of one of the annual prizes awarded to a final year graduate student from Charles Darwin University. This work explores the interconnectedness of spaces and the fragility of these connections …  It’s probably also time to get your artistic thoughts together for an entry in the annual 24HR Art Members’ Show, which this year is being held from 3 November to 2 December. This year’s theme is 'wet and dry'. Visit www.24hrart.org.au or call 08 8981 5368.

NATSIAA winners

Once again, it is NATSIAA time in Darwin, bringing with it the buzz and excitement of the art world to Darwin by those attending the opening and the anticipation of who will win. This year’s Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Art Award (NATSIAA), held at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) did not disappoint, generating a great deal of interest and excitement in the Indigenous art world and propelling Indigenous art into the spotlight. This year, Ngoia Napaltjarri Pollard took out the Telstra prize with her elegant painting Swamps west of Nirripi. This work was selected from almost 400 entries and from the final selection of eighty-two works. This year’s judges were Christopher Menz, Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia; and artist Jody Broun. The rules governing the art award were changed this year so the winning work was not automatically acquired by MAGNT, allowing the artists to retain their works should they win. This is a small, but significant, change in an arts environment that has recently seen record prices set for Indigenous works of art.

The winner of the Telstra General Painting Award was Linda Syddick Napaltjarri from Kintore, Northern Territory with a work entitled The Witch Doctor and the Windmill; the Bark Painting Award was taken out by a work entitled Gungura (Wind dreaming with goanna track) by Samuel Namunjdja; Judy Watson was awarded the prize for Works-on-Paper with a series of etchings entitled A preponderance of Aboriginal blood; and the Wandjuk Marika 3rd Memorial Award, went to Baluka Maymuru for a group of three memorial poles relating the complex stories and associations with the funerary rights of the Manggalili clan peoples in Arnhem Land. Each year the NATSIAA awards continues to attract large numbers of interested artists collectors and tourists to Darwin, and with the Garma Festival being held the week before, Indigenous art and culture is finding an ever-increasing audience and position in the events calendar of the Top End. Congratulations to all the winners and exhibitors.