New web site!

We now have our own domain name - http://www.durrmuarts.com.au/ and new site, so please go and have a look.

We all think it's pretty flash (but also able to be downloaded on our slow adsl here in Peppi!)

Content is slowly but surely being uploaded.

Regina Wilson selected for Wynne Prize 2008

CONGRATULATIONS! to Regina Wilson for being selected as a finalist for the 2008 Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Regina's selected painting is Message Sticks, acrylic on linen, 2oo x 200cm. Detail shot at right.

We'll upload some more photos as soon as we see the work hanging.

Exhibition opens 8 March 2008.

Important Aboriginal Art at Caruana Reid

The annual Important Aboriginal Art exhibition at Caruana Reid, Michael Reid at Elizabeth Bay, opened last night and will run until the 22nd March 2008.

One of the highlights of the show, and the work chosen for the catalogue's cover is Regina Wilson's Syaw (fish-net), 2008, acrylic on linen, 200 x 200cm, below.

Other artists include Kitty Kantilla, George Tjungurrayi, Netta Loogatha, Judy Napangardi, Sally Gabori and Danie Mellor.

Wally Caruana's series of educational Aboriginal art lectures, held over the course of the exhibition, have sold out! But definitely go and see the show if you're in Sydney.

Singapore success

Here are some images from the exhibition Ancient Culture. Modern Art at Club 21 Gallery, Four Seasons Hotel, Singapore.

The exhibition opening was attended by the High Commissioner and Austrade representatives, and the show has attracted many curious visitors and indigenous art collectors.

For more information about the works included, or to request a copy of the printed catalogue please contact us at durrmuarts@gmail.com.

Ancient Culture. Modern Art: the art of Regina Wilson & Peppimenarti at Club 21 Gallery, Singapore

Club 21 Gallery and tjala, supported by the Australian High Commission and the Australian Trade Commissioner, are proud to present Ancient Culture. Modern Art - an exhibition of contemporary Aboriginal Australian art by Regina Wilson and the artists of the Peppimenarti community.

From January 17 - February 17 2008.

Club 21 Gallery is located at the Four Seasons Hotel, 190 Orchard Boulevard Singapore.

Regina Wilson, Syaw (fish-net), acrylic on linen, 200 x 120cm, right.

Patsy Marfura, Fi (sand-palm twine), acrylic on linen, 120 x 200cm, below.

Peppimenarti art at Govett Brewster Gallery, NZ.

Indigenous Australian Art In NZ

Press Release: Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Paintings from remote communities: Indigenous Australian art from the Laverty Collection, Sydney
15 December 2007 - 24 February 2008

The most expansive exhibition of Indigenous Australian paintings ever seen in Aotearoa New Zealand opens at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery on 15 December 2007.

Paintings from remote communities: Indigenous Australian art from the Laverty Collection, Sydney comprises 61 recent paintings from the private collection of Dr Colin and Mrs Elizabeth Laverty.

It highlights the diversity and complexity of visual languages and in particular, the heightened colour used by contemporary Indigenous artists.

Within Aboriginal culture, art has always represented a means by which the present is connected to the past and human beings with the supernatural and spiritual world of the Dreaming. It expresses identity and the deep spiritual relationship between the people, their stories and their land.

Govett-Brewster Director Rhana Devenport says, "Paintings from remote communities offers an insight into an incredibly rich and complex cultural expression that marries contemporary perspectives with stories that stretch back as long as 60,000 years".

The exhibition comprises paintings by 34 artists, many of whom have received significant international acclaim. Artists include Paddy Bedford, Eubena Nampitjin, Makinti Napanangka, Prince of Wales, Freddie Timms, Helicopter TjungarrayI and Regina Wilson.
Paintings from remote communities focuses on four groupings: artists of the Central and Western Deserts through Papunya Tula Artists; the Balgo community from the Southern Kimberley; Peppimenarti, Lajamanu, Ngukurr and Darwin in the Northern Territory; and Hall's Creek, Turkey Creek and Kununurra in the East Kimberley.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication featuring Will Owen's essay Transmuted Traditions, which Devenport says captures one of the key issues in presenting such an exhibition, the innovation of forms that is constantly present in this very contemporary art.

Owen says that "contemporary painters of Indigenous Australian descent are engaged with a whole tradition, one that includes both ceremonial culture - itself never a static or monolithic enterprise - and the demands, dictates and and opportunities afforded by their interaction with other Indigenous artists as well as the hurly-burly of the western art market with its exhibition programs, art awards and very different ceremonies. At the interface of two cultures Aboriginal art today is unremittingly modern, art of its time." This essay will also form part of a major, soon to be published book on the Laverty Collection.

This collection is today recognised as one of the most important private collections of Indigenous Australian Art. It was built over many years through the Laverty's longstanding relationships with artists and advisers across many remote communities and through city galleries.

Paintings from remote communities will also be complemented by a comprehensive programme of public events. Included is Radiance, a film programme which profiles the work of three celebrated Indigenous Australian filmmakers, Beck Cole, Rachel Perkins and Warwick Thornton. Radiance is curated by Kathryn Weir, Head of International Art and the Australian Cinémathèque at Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art.

In the presentation of this exhibition the Govett-Brewster Gallery acknowledges the support of the Australian High Commission, Aalto Colour and Radio Network Taranaki.

Paintings from remote communities: Indigenous Australian art from the Laverty Collection, Sydney is presented from 15 December 2007 until 24 February 2008.

*information courtesy of Govett Brewster Gallery. Dorothy Sams' Untitled, 2003, above left.

Patsy Marfura - new work

Patsy Marfura is a Ngangiwumerri speaker, born at the Daly River Mission in the early forties. In her late thirties she moved her husband and six children to Peppimenarti. There her grandmother and other elders taught her to weave dilly bags and mats.

Patsy decided to take up painting 5 years ago, drawing on her knowledge of weaving and ceremonial body paint designs.

Patsy predominantly paints durrmu (body painting dot) and fi (sand-palm twine) subjects. The sand-palm twine is the fibre used for weaving dilly bags and fish-nets.

Patsy’s stunning, colourful compositions play visual chess, drawing the eye across their energetic surfaces. By transferring the patterns and rhythms of weaving directly onto the canvas, Patsy realises sculptural forms in two dimensions.

Durrmu (body painting dot), acrylic on linen, 150 x 150cm, above.

Fi (sand-palm twine), acrylic on linen, 150 x 100cm, left.