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A New Way of Telling The Australian Story
It’s not so long ago that the telling of Australian history in schools and cultural institutions was all about the white settlement and European explorers. Just recently I returned to Sydney for the first time in fifteen years and I got to see the extent of change in how Australian history and culture is now…
Landscape Colours and Patterns on Show At Japingka
We are excited to start off the year with the Landscape Colours exhibition this Friday night at Japingka. The collection draws together some famous artists’ work sitting alongside the art of some very talented rising stars. We wanted to show how Aboriginal people respond to landscape. We also wanted to celebrate the extraordinary diversity in…
Amanda Westley (Conway-Jones) First Solo Show at Japingka
It’s great to see a room full of paintings by Amanda Westley (Conway-Jones), who is a new artist to Japingka Gallery. Amanda has put together a wonderful group of small and medium-sized paintings showing aspects of her life on the coast at Victor Harbor in South Australia. Her paintings evoke the sense of being by…
Rover Thomas Painting a Highlight at Japingka Gallery
Bedford Station Rover Thomas Jap 006654 This particular painting is one of my favourite paintings by the late great Rover Thomas Joolama. Rover is easily recognised as one of the greats of the Indigenous Fine Art Movement. He is from Warman or Turkey Creek in the Kimberley region of the north-west part of Western Australia.…
New video library for Aboriginal art resources
There has been a noticeable and exciting rise in the number of teachers, students and art lovers keen to learn about Australian Aboriginal art. We are also observing that video is increasingly the way that people learn and share this information. YouTube and Vimeo and other video databases can be so large, Japingka has launched…
Aboriginal Women Speaking About Art, Family & Country
We are always thrilled to have the opportunity to sit down and speak with artists about their work. Japingka exhibits Aboriginal art from forty different regions right across Australia. A quick look at our Artists Page will show you the extraordinary diversity of that art. Our exhibiting artists include artists who live in the cities and towns while others…
Highlights from our 2016 Indigenous Art Exhibition Program
It’s been a really great year for our exhibition program, probably one of the most eclectic years we’ve ever had. We’ve exhibited a wide range of artists from all around Australia. The program has included artists from indigenous owned and run art centres, as well as independent artists and famous artists from the past. I’d…
Rosella Namok & Sisters from the Tropical North
We are excited to have an exhibition of works from the Lockhart River Indigenous painters. This group of young women started painting when they were still in their teens. Their work feels very contemporary. It’s innovative and colourful. You walk into the room and these paintings feel so alive. There’s an extrovert quality in the…
Elsie Napanangka Granites – Shimmering Maps of An Ancient Land
We have a powerful new exhibition of paintings by senior artist Elsie Napanangka Granites. They are about the women’s ceremonial site and it’s impossible not to be moved by them. The series is called Mina Mina Jukurrpa, the women’s Dreaming stories. It’s associated with a very big salt lake in the central Tanami Desert. There…
Japingka Takes On A New Name
Today is a big day for us at Japingka. We’ve officially changed our name to Japingka Aboriginal Art. Previously we went under the name Japingka Gallery. As you may know, Aboriginal art has been our primary focus for over thirty years. Nothing has changed in our passion and commitment. What has changed is that the art industry…
Camel Camp and Beyond: Utopia Artists of the Eastern Desert
Susan Pitjara Hunter | Awely – Body Paint 180 x 180 cm Jap 013016 Camel Camp is one of about twenty outstation camps on the Utopia Homelands. These small settlements have been the basis of family life for the Alywarr and Anmatyerr people who first gained freehold rights to the Utopia lands in 1978. The…
Art & Life at Camel Camp on Utopia Homelands
Sonja Chalmers is the co-ordinator of an independent arts centre at Camel Camp, Utopia. Here she talks about her work with the artists. Can you tell us a bit about Camel Camp? Camel Camp is on Utopia, an Aboriginal freehold property about 250 kilometers northeast of Alice Springs. Camel Camp is one of around 20…
Josie Petrick Kemarre on Witch Doctors, Family & Art
Josie (Josepha) Petrick Kemarre is an Anmatyerre-speaking artist from Central Australia. She divides her time between her family’s traditional land and the town of Alice Springs. In this interview, she talks about seeing a witch doctor, her painting and family. Where did you grow up? I grew up in Santa Teresa and left when I was married at 16.…
George Tuckerbox: Rare Maps of A Lost Desert Land
Artist George Tuckerbox has seen the ancient and the ultra modern. He can remember first contact with white people. He’s been a stockman and drover, worked with bullock teams, been a ceremonial singer and performer and an exhibiting artist. He has been through droughts and driving cyclonic rains. He’s performed traditional dance in Tokyo. In a full life with many highlights it is…
NATSIAA 2016 – Exciting Times for Indigenous Art in Darwin
Ian Plunkett looks back at the NATSIAA 2016 Art Awards and associated Aboriginal art events in Darwin. I’m just back from Darwin Art Fair and it was great. It was one of the best Art Fairs for quite a few years.The Telstra Art Awards, or NATSIAA, were of a particularly high standard this year. They seem to…
Warlpiri Star Gazers Dazzle at Japingka
Alma Granites Seven Sisters Dreaming November 19, 2014 by David Wroth It would be fair to say that we’re all a little starstruck right now at Japingka as we’re hanging the paintings for our Warlpiri Star Gazers exhibition. It’s not surprising that the contemporary Aboriginal art movement bought us a number of artists who passionately follow…
The Story Behind Star Gazers
Knowledge of the deep solar system and local Indigenous knowledge of the stars are fused in the current exhibition Shared Sky at the John Curtin Gallery at Curtin University, open until 2nd November. The exhibition is presented in conjunction with Yamaji Art Centre, Geraldton, the international SKA Organisation; SKA-South Africa; SKA-Australia and the First People Centre,…
Here’s Our New Exhibition From The Spinifex Arts Project
Myrtle Pennington | Kanpa. Spinifex Arts Project Jap 011059 There’s so much excitement here at as we prepare for the new show by the Spinifex Arts Project. These works are so powerful and vibrant. It’s easy to see why they’re enjoying so much international success right now. In the last year they’ve had successful shows in Germany and…
Here’s An Excellent Review For Charlie’s Country
It’s wonderful when a highly skilled director like Rolf de Heer takes the risks that he does to make a film that explores another layer of the complex story of being aboriginal in Australia. You’d think it would be so much easier to fund and promote a film that sticks to more commercial pathways and…
Mowanjum Festival
The Mowanjum Art centre hosts one of Western Australia’s great Aboriginal festival days – 11 July 2013. Mowanjum Festival is always a great event, a pure piece of Kimberley Aboriginal heritage and theatre. If you are anywhere near Derby in the West Kimberley on 11 July you must get there. Aboriginal dancers from all around…