EXHIBITION DATES:Saturday, 27 June 2009 - Friday, 7 August 2009
OPENING:6-8 pm Friday 26 June, 2009
Troy-Anthony Baylis, Bindi Cole, Clinton Nain, Duncan Robinson Curated by Ben McKeown
The rise in popularity of contemporary Indigenous art, combined with the risk taking attitudes of many Indigenous artists, has forged a pathway that has helped shape a new popular culture in this country - one that embraces all artforms. The artists in this exhibition have been chosen for their proactive engagement with urban discourse, all celebrating identity while exploring individual interests.
Troy-Anthony Baylis is an Adelaide based artist of Irish and Indigenous heritage. Descendent, of the Jawoyn people of the Northern Territory, Baylis uses knitted objects such as Dillybags, condoms, beanies to convey messages. They are symbolic for 'yarnin' up'. His work Tomorrow is presented as an anthem - a song of identity - liberation -"is only a day a way!"
Bindi Cole's installation Bindi's Boxes expose some uncomfortable truths about the fundamental disconnection between who we are and the experiences by which we shape our sense of self. Wathaurang woman Cole is an emerging artist based in Melbourne. In 2007 she won the Victorian Indigenous Art Award for Photography.
Clinton Nain, born in Carlton Victoria, has established himself as one of Australia's significant contemporary artists. Descendant from the Mirian Mer of the Torres Strait and Ku Ku language group of Queensland he explores and asks questions pertaining to the title Just Can't Get Enough perhaps its 'Just need to have, Land Rights, Justice, Truth, Freedom, 'Maybe it's some "love and payback too"'.
Duncan Robinson attended the University of Tasmania, Centre for the Arts majoring in Photography and completed his Honours and Masters in Video. Robinson is from the Trawlwoolway language group from North East Tasmania. He has been involved in the live music scene in Hobart for the last fourteen years, recently releasing a full-length album with his band The Nurses. No wonder then that Robinson is fixated with noise, "if there is nothing to hear how do we know what we are hearing? Wouldn't therefore silence be a noise"?
Ben McKeown is an artist and curator descendant of the Wirangu language group of the far west coast of South Australia. He graduated with a Master of Visual Art from the Faculty of the Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne.
