Titled Grand Design, Everywhen Artspace’s summer show is a carefully curated selection of contemporary paintings on canvas and bark, as well as sculptures by leading artists from around Australia.
“In the 14 years we’ve been showing Aboriginal art on the Mornington Peninsula, we’ve regularly presented an exhibition of high-quality work in January,” says Everywhen’s co director Susan McCulloch. “It’s a great time to showcase some of the best of Australian Indigenous art. This year we decided to also feature works of large scale.”
Notable in this exhibition, she says, is a one of the last paintings by Kunmanara (Pepai) Jangala Carroll, supplied by the artist’s estate at Ernabella Arts.
“We’re hugely honored that Mr Carroll’s family and his art centre Ernabella Arts entrusted us with such a significant painting,” says Susan. ” In 2022 Sotheby’s New York set an auction record for Mr Carroll’s work and it’s now extremely rare. We were very early supporters of Mr Carroll’s work from 2009 and got to know him personally quite well. He was a Western Desert man who had married Alison Milyiki Caroll, a community leader at Ernabella, and moved some 500k from his community to his wife’s country. His paintings always depicted his birthplace of Ilpili near Mt Liebig, NT.”
Another work of note says Susan is the first collaborative Star and Moon Dreaming painting by famous Kimberley artist Mabel Juli and her granddaughter Atlanta Mercy Umbulgurri. “In 2021 Mrs Juli decided to pass her dreaming stories and the rights to paint them to her granddaughter Atlanta – a very talented 25-year-old. Atlanta has produced her own works under her grandmother’s tutelage; however this is the first time the two have painted a canvas together.”
Equally striking are large scale glowing works by APY artists including Alison Munti Riley, Atipalku Intjalki, Janice Stanley and Michelle Lewis from Ernabella Arts; those by Daisy Barney, Rosalind Tjanyari, Priscilla Singer, Raylene Walatinna and Yatjiki Cullinan from Iwantja Arts and Betty Campbell from Mimili Arts.
Textured ochre paintings from the Kimberley include those by the late Ned Johns, grandson of the famous land rights leader Vincent Lingiari; Jimmy McKenzie, son of the late Queenie McKenzie and soft hued works by Nancy Noonju.
Western Desert works include a subtle painting by leading artist Candy Nelson Nakamara and a strikingly patterned work by younger generation artist Renita Brown Nungurrayi.
Representing the famous painting region of Utopia are bush medicine works by Bernadine Kemarre; women’s ceremonies by Janet Golder Kngwarreye and Lizzie Moss Pwerle; gloriously coloured bush plum works by Belinda Golder Kngwarreye and yam dreaming paintings by Jeannie Mills Pwerle.
Barks and larrakitj (ceremonial poles) from Buku-Larrnggay Mulka in North-East Arnhem Land feature waterlilies and plants while sculptures are by Mornington Peninsula-based Palawa artist Dominic White and mimih spirits by Maningrida’s Samson Bonson.
Grand Design runs until February 7. View online or visit gallery.
Everywhen Artspace – Open January, 7 days a week 11am-4pm
A: 39 Cook Street, Flinders
P: 5989 0496
W: everywhenart.com.au
Peninsula Essence, The Essence of Art on the Peninsula – January 2023