Entertainment
30 November, 2024
‘Flourishing’ art exhibition
JULATTEN-BASED artist Alison Nanpitnjinpa Anderson has launched her exhibition ‘Flourishing’ at Studio 29 in the CBD, a deeply personal and cultural collection of works reflecting on her Country – Luritja – its desert landscapes and sacred rituals.
In a collaborative effort between the design and exhibition space Studio 29 and Broome’s Short Street Gallery, Ms Anderson’s latest exhibition – Flourishing – and her first one in Cairns is now open to the public with 11 paintings representing the ever-changing landscape of Central Australia, the stories of her family and ancestors and the rituals and ceremonies of her tribe.
The exhibition will run until December 20 at the Studio 29 Gallery on 29 Sheridan St in the CBD.
“This is all central Australian work and that’s where my stories come from, the rain dreaming site and the fire dreaming site,” Ms Anderson said.
“I want to talk about this collection as a whole because it resembles who we are,” she said.
“I am nothing without the painting and the painting is nothing without me because it’s about Country, it gives me my identity.
“So my identity and language come from that, remembering the sites, hearing the sounds.
“These paintings aren’t just paintings, they’re maps of who you are, where your journey begins and where it ends, and in that journey who you’re related to.
“Certain paintings of this collection talk about sorry business (time after bereavement), so when we lose a loved one, what kind of colours we use, what the emblems are, there are other bright paintings that resemble rain time, greenery, flowers.”
Short Street Gallery director and co-founder of Studio 29 Emily Rohr said the works that comprised Flourishing were extraordinary and a must-see for anyone who appreciated the culturally embedded mores of First Nations art.
“Alison’s work is beautifully observed,” she said.
“While Alison lives and paints in her home studio in Julatten, her cultural and family ties stretch across large tracts of the western desert, which is the source of her inspiration – the harsh landscape of her homelands and the intergenerational stories within are redolent in the colours, textures and delightfully abstract resolve of her paintings.”
Ms Anderson said she hoped non-Indigenous people attending her exhibition deeply reflected on First Nations’ stories, survival and connection to the land.
“It’s been 65,000 years of survival, our art and connection to Country and our songs and I’d like for people to absorb that from this exhibition,” she said.
Studio 29 gallery is open Monday to Friday from
10am to 4pm and Saturdays
10am to 2pm.
