Exhibitions

ReDot Fine Art Gallery is delighted and extremely honoured to host Sarah Brown’s inaugural overseas show, REMOTE.

REMOTE is a collection of 45 works on canvas and gesso boards, a stunning body of work inspired by the magnificent Western Desert Landscapes and Sarah’s life-changing contributions in Indigenous communities, which captures the audience with its honesty and profound connection to country.

Sarah Brown is a remarkable woman. Not only is she an extremely talented and inspirational artist, based in Alice Springs, but also a nurse, health care worker and she was instrumental in setting up the Purple House, the headquarters for the Western Desert Nganampa Walytja Palyantjaku Tjutaku (WDNWPT), a health organisation for Indigenous communities which translates as ‘keeping all our families well’.

In the last decade WDNWPT has established and continues to operate eleven remote Indigenous community dialysis centres, which have become a beacon of hope in a chronic epidemic which sees Indigenous Australians suffer renal failure at a rate 15-30 times higher than national average.

Whilst Sarah is the CEO of WDNWPT, and her every working hour is spent supporting the Indigenous communities, she finds painting is a release. A nocturnal activity that allows her to reflect, consider and attempt to order the no doubt chaotic professional path she has chosen to pursue. Her work is in exceptionally high demand as collectors are captivated by her ability to render the imagery of the Western Desert that she has been servicing as a nurse for almost 24 years.

Sarah says her influences are several: Impressionist and post-Impressionist painters; local artists’ work, especially Rod Moss’, from whom she had some technical guidance early on in Alice Springs. But her true influences are much more profound than any of those – they are simply the influence of life, of leaving a mark and giving back. In a world full of hardship and inequality, she works relentlessly to leave a better mark, a more humane mark and a lasting mark from her remote Australian outback posting, and every one of her works achieves this with authority and that “uniqueness” that is Sarah Brown.

The exhibition begins on Wednesday 16 November runs until Saturday 31 December 2016, with an official opening night on Thursday 1 December 2016, which will also be attended in person by Sarah. A must-see show for anyone interested in understanding the current plight of modern day Indigenous health issues and also to see the beauty of the Australian outback through the eyes of a remarkable woman and artist.

ReDot Fine Art Gallery is honoured to welcome back, after a one-year hiatus, the 12th and 13th exhibitions of stunning Contemporary art from the trail-blazing Indigenously owned art centre, Papunya Tula Artists Pty. Ltd. These joint solo exhibitions firmly cement the position of this corner-stone of the modern Indigenous Art Movement and also represent a poignant look back at the work of one of their recently deceased doyenne and a refreshing and encouraging peek into the future. This stunning collection of over 45 works by two gifted artists from Australia’s vast Western Desert, graphically depicts their strong connection to land, culture and family.

Ningura Napurrula was born at Watulka, south of the Kiwirrkurra Community, circa 1938 and was one of the earliest pioneer female painters of the company, completing her first paintings for Papunya Tula Artists in 1996. By 1999 Ningura had already amassed an impressive exhibition profile and was becoming a hugely successful and collectable artist and in 2003 she was chosen, along with four other Papunya Tula Artists, to have one of her paintings represented on an Australia Post international stamp. Arguably her finest moment came in 2004 when Ningura was one of eight Indigenous artists selected to have an example of their work incorporated into the architecture of the Musée du quai Branly in Paris and her ceiling oeuvre opened to the public in June 2006. Ningura passed away at Kintore in November 2013.

Nanyuma was born in the vicinity of Kiwirrkurra, close to Ningura’s birth place in approximately 1944 and despite only being a few years younger than Ningura her painting career has followed a more modest early trajectory, though in 1999 Nanyuma did also contribute to the Kiwirrkurra women’s painting.

Whilst their respective styles show close, interconnected, harmonious story-telling that’s central to the Pintupi culture, their styles also offer dramatically different painterly execution. Ningura adopted a more expansive/figurative approach to the songlines of her maternal lineage, the highly spiritual and secretive birth ceremonies of her mother, sometimes rough and seemingly haphazard in its rendering. Nanyuma conversely delivers more controlled dotting, using the stunning techniques mastered by her community colleagues such as Yukultji Napangati and Doreen Reid Nakamarra. The natural usage of positive and negative space to create pulsating lines of “tali” depicts her own important ceremonial stories. This style marries effortlessly with Ningura’s epic renditions of the genesis of life and these painstakingly produced complex paintings all augur a bright future with the masterly old being blended into the refreshingly new.

The exhibitions begin on Wednesday 5 October and runs until Saturday 12 November 2016. It will be attended in person by Ben Danks, Assistant Manager of Papunya Tula Artists Pty. Ltd. for the official opening on Friday 7 October 2016 at 6:30pm.

ReDot Fine Art Gallery is honoured to welcome back, after a one-year hiatus, the 12th and 13th exhibitions of stunning Contemporary art from the trail-blazing Indigenously owned art centre, Papunya Tula Artists Pty. Ltd. These joint solo exhibitions firmly cement the position of this corner-stone of the modern Indigenous Art Movement and also represent a poignant look back at the work of one of their recently deceased doyenne and a refreshing and encouraging peek into the future. This stunning collection of over 45 works by two gifted artists from Australia’s vast Western Desert, graphically depicts their strong connection to land, culture and family.

Ningura Napurrula was born at Watulka, south of the Kiwirrkurra Community, circa 1938 and was one of the earliest pioneer female painters of the company, completing her first paintings for Papunya Tula Artists in 1996. By 1999 Ningura had already amassed an impressive exhibition profile and was becoming a hugely successful and collectable artist and in 2003 she was chosen, along with four other Papunya Tula Artists, to have one of her paintings represented on an Australia Post international stamp. Arguably her finest moment came in 2004 when Ningura was one of eight Indigenous artists selected to have an example of their work incorporated into the architecture of the Musée du quai Branly in Paris and her ceiling oeuvre opened to the public in June 2006. Ningura passed away at Kintore in November 2013.

Nanyuma was born in the vicinity of Kiwirrkurra, close to Ningura’s birth place in approximately 1944 and despite only being a few years younger than Ningura her painting career has followed a more modest early trajectory, though in 1999 Nanyuma did also contribute to the Kiwirrkurra women’s painting.

Whilst their respective styles show close, interconnected, harmonious story-telling that’s central to the Pintupi culture, their styles also offer dramatically different painterly execution. Ningura adopted a more expansive/figurative approach to the songlines of her maternal lineage, the highly spiritual and secretive birth ceremonies of her mother, sometimes rough and seemingly haphazard in its rendering. Nanyuma conversely delivers more controlled dotting, using the stunning techniques mastered by her community colleagues such as Yukultji Napangati and Doreen Reid Nakamarra. The natural usage of positive and negative space to create pulsating lines of “tali” depicts her own important ceremonial stories. This style marries effortlessly with Ningura’s epic renditions of the genesis of life and these painstakingly produced complex paintings all augur a bright future with the masterly old being blended into the refreshingly new.

The exhibitions begin on Wednesday 5 October and runs until Saturday 12 November 2016. It will be attended in person by Ben Danks, Assistant Manager of Papunya Tula Artists Pty. Ltd. for the official opening on Friday 7 October 2016 at 6:30pm.

ReDot Fine Art Gallery is honoured to present, An Unconfirmed Number, an exhibition of recent paintings by Australian artist, David Kelly. The work is the culmination of his Master of Visual Art degree through the University of South Australia and presents a powerful visual exploration of Australia’s colonial past. Developing from a residency with the Gija people of Warmun Art Centre in 2012, Kelly examines his non-indigenous ancestry as it relates to the colonisation of Australia and the largely untold stories of the violent conflicts that marked the era. The significance of ‘place’ and his relationship to the landscapes in which he has lived and travelled has been a recurring theme in Kelly’s work over more than thirty years as a practicing artist. In this series he extends on the reference to political themes associated to place, first addressed in his ‘Tuol Sleng – silent walls’ series, related to the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia.

In a similar way to that body of work, the artist presents in this new exhibition, highly charged images drawn from harrowing histories that use visual devices of beauty by contrast. Within the stark black and white lines of several canvases, sit subtle grey textures which invite closer consideration. In other works, the boldness of the Australian forest landscape is conveyed with the burnt sienna hues of eucalyptus trunks and the scorched black texture of wattle tree bark. While used as metaphors to convey his message, Kelly avoids literal reference to the landscape, rather alluded to in gesture, texture and palette.

Drawing on experiences as a teacher and artist in South Australian Adnyamathanha and Narungga communities, Kelly has used his more recent relationship with Gija painters to share a story not often told with a non-indigenous voice. He has set out to create what he terms a ‘memory initiative’ rather than a memorial, which promotes discussion, honest reflection and a positive view to the future. While acknowledging a difficult past, the work is equally a celebration of what transcends all human histories; the captivating qualities of the Australian landscape. These paintings provide an opportunity to reflect and consider the stories they reference, or simply to immerse oneself in the aesthetic experience of earthen forms, rich palette and dramatic composition.

In his comments on the exhibition, Dr. Ian Greig, of the National Art School, Sydney, Australia, wrote ‘(this work) effectively articulates the capacity of painting to act as a transformative event in the experience of memory’ and ‘(in it) we have a context in which painting can perform a redemptive, therapeutic engagement with the world – painting as a vehicle of transcendence’.

The exhibition begins on Wednesday 3rd August and runs until Sunday 28th August 2016. It will be attended in person by David Kelly for the official opening on Wednesday 17th August 2016 at 6:30pm.

ReDot Fine Art Gallery is honoured to present, Talking to a Stranger, a joint solo exhibition of recent paintings by Australian artist, Todd Hunter, as we enter the next chapter of the galleries development, the introduction of non-Indigenous Australian contemporary art to the Singaporean art collectors market.

Strictly speaking, Todd is neither a figurative nor an abstract painter. As he explains “I take the colours and shapes of the natural world and push them through a blender of imagination and memory.” He prefers the viewer to reach their own conclusion as to the meaning, relying on their personal cognition and memory to evoke a response, a recognition that goes beyond the mere representation.

Todd is a solitary man when at work, spending many hours alone in his studio, surrounded by an enormous CD collection and accompanied only by his music which, chosen almost subconsciously, has an enormous influence on his work. As has been noted in the past, there is a synergy between the exuberant, frenetic brushwork of Todd and his predilection for lyrical music especially Bob Dylan, Nick Cave and Tom Waits. All of his works take their title from the music that Todd loves and listens to. The music, the artistic output all embody the emotions and the events that are surrounding his life at the time he is in his studio; be that his atelier in Sydney or his remote studio in the Australian bush in Northern NSW. Each work a window into the soul of the artist life, abstract, engaging and sufficient removed to allow personal interpretation.

As art curator, Natalie King noted in 2010, Todd reminds us “of the fleshy curves of Peter Paul Rubens, the vulgar gestures of Willem de Kooning and Francis Bacons tortured figures.” Todd has an intimate knowledge of these great painters having studied art history and trained at the Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney after completing a visual arts degree at Griffith University in Brisbane.

The current body of canvas and boards, Todd’s first ever showing in Singapore, consists of 11 gems that are a significant departure from his recognised colourful oeuvres. Predominately imbued in black and white with a hint at a tinge of colour, the works retain all the classical techniques Todd employs in his work and the frenetic intensity is still clearly evident but the viewer is left to ponder and consider the changing dynamics of Todd’s world, surrounding landscape and how perhaps all this is struggling to positioning itself within his art.

Todd is one of Australia’s most exciting and promising contemporary abstract painters and has already been acknowledged with several award classification and collection acquisitions.

The exhibition begins on Wednesday 3rd August and runs until Sunday 28th August 2016. It will be attended in person by Todd Hunter for the official opening on Wednesday 17th August 2016 at 6:30pm.

ReDot Fine Art Gallery is honoured to present, Two Stories, a major exhibition of 6 recent steel sculptures and one installation comprising 13 individual Australian Jarrah hardwood poles by renowned Australian artist, Greg Johns. Ever since he started making sculptures in 1976 Greg says he has ‘felt largely alienated from the art world.’ He says that much of what has been produced from Pop art onwards frankly bores him! Despite being viewed as an outsider, a slightly eccentric maverick of his chosen profession, this hasn’t stopped him becoming one of the most celebrated and collectable sculptural artists Australia has ever produced.

His achievements read almost like a novella with pages and pages of accolades. Over 50 invitations and awards can be attributed to him since his first solo show in 1977 and the list of collections and commissions he is held within or undertaken run into the hundreds, such has been his appeal and connection with the Australian and global public. This is all the more impressive given the often super-sized mediums of his oeuvres in both steel and wood, which are not always manageable in normal spaces.

His astonishing work has indeed not gone unnoticed even in the Lion city, with significant works in the Wing Tai Collection, Singapore and a major sculpture commission for REDAS, Singapore between 1993–95. Greg has refused to allow the comparative isolation of Adelaide to limit his career!

According to Robert Lindsay, the former Director of McClelland Sculpture Park, much of Greg’s early work revolved around the use of simple interlocking, reciprocal geometric patterns where an apparently continuously interwoven pattern appears to form visual conundrums. However, within his early use of repeating triangular and later semi-circular shapes, which he refers to as ’waveforms’, there is a consistent overarching interest in the interconnectedness, as he says, of ’patterning, of symbolism and timelessness, and the unfolding of subtler and more complex systems; as well as questions of spirit, physical systems and randomness, that all exist in an integrated manner’.

His interconnection extends to Indigenous culture and the Australian outback too, referenced repeatedly in his work, giving a soothing juxtaposition to his sometimes confronting works. This latest collection, which will be shown within the context of a backdrop of Indigenous hardship and conflict via David Kelly’s ‘An Unconfirmed Number’ will open challenging but hopefully rewarding dialogues for the viewer, bringing this enormous talent to the forefront of the Asian art scene exactly four decades after commencing his career.

The exhibition begins on Wednesday 3rd August and runs until Sunday 28th August 2016. It will be attended in person by Greg Johns for the official opening on Wednesday 17th August 2016 at 6:30pm.

After last year’s inaugural show at the new gallery location on Hill Street, ReDot Fine Art Gallery is extremely honoured to follow up with another show by the exciting Imelda (Yukenbarri) Gugaman. This time, her new body of works is accompanied by close family members from the remote Indigenous community of Balgo Hills and their community art centre known officially as Warlayirti Arts.

In this exhibition Imelda shares the artistic stage with Theresa, Geraldine, Madeline and Ann Nowee (all direct cousins of Imelda from her paternal side), all close collaborators in what has been an artistic Indigenous hotspot for over 20 years. This art centre is known as Balgo Arts, and continues to producing some of the most important Indigenous artists of all time.

Imelda and Family is a collection of 30 new works by this group of ladies and one very special collaborative work that fuses the relatives together, which is an explosion of colour and harmony as their respective tjukurpas (Dreaming stories) are delicately stitched together on one imposing canvas which traverses some of the most beautiful country in the south-eastern Kimberley region.

Imelda’s stunning and meticulously executed oeuvres of soft ochre colours are joined by bolder and more vivaciously coloured masterpieces by Theresa and Ann, whilst Geraldine and Madeline remind us all that the talent vein in this family is very deep and Imelda’s position as the doyenne is not to be taken for granted.

Works by the Nowee sisters are imbued with important stories that were bequeathed to them by their father, Brandy Tjungurrayi, who was an imposing man with far reaching ceremonial responsibilities in Balgo. He was the elder sibling of Helicopter Tjungurrayi, regarded as one of the most important living Indigenous artists.

Winpurpurla, Imelda’s sacred country is joined by Wirrimanu, Minyilpa, Yarki and Mungari – all important soakage or rockhole sites in and around the famous Canning Stock Route. All the works are an amazing affirmation of these artists’ painterly pointillism style. They bringing the viewer into a very remote landscape of Indigenous Australia, creating meandering, three dimensional topographical maps of the soakage waterhole sites of their beloved country.

The exhibition begins on Thursday 7th July and runs until Saturday 30th July 2016. It will be attended in person again by Imelda and this time with Ann Nowee, as they offer their country and its secrets to the Singaporean public. It is a must-see show for anyone interested in following the recent developments in Indigenous Art and an opportunity to meet two beautiful and talented proponents of one of the world’s oldest art forms.

After last year’s inaugural show at the new gallery location on Hill Street, ReDot Fine Art Gallery is extremely honoured to follow up with another show by the exciting Imelda (Yukenbarri) Gugaman. This time, her new body of works is accompanied by close family members from the remote Indigenous community of Balgo Hills and their community art centre known officially as Warlayirti Arts.

In this exhibition Imelda shares the artistic stage with Theresa, Geraldine, Madeline and Ann Nowee (all direct cousins of Imelda from her paternal side), all close collaborators in what has been an artistic Indigenous hotspot for over 20 years. This art centre is known as Balgo Arts, and continues to producing some of the most important Indigenous artists of all time.

Imelda and Family is a collection of 30 new works by this group of ladies and one very special collaborative work that fuses the relatives together, which is an explosion of colour and harmony as their respective tjukurpas (Dreaming stories) are delicately stitched together on one imposing canvas which traverses some of the most beautiful country in the south-eastern Kimberley region.

Imelda’s stunning and meticulously executed oeuvres of soft ochre colours are joined by bolder and more vivaciously coloured masterpieces by Theresa and Ann, whilst Geraldine and Madeline remind us all that the talent vein in this family is very deep and Imelda’s position as the doyenne is not to be taken for granted.

Works by the Nowee sisters are imbued with important stories that were bequeathed to them by their father, Brandy Tjungurrayi, who was an imposing man with far reaching ceremonial responsibilities in Balgo. He was the elder sibling of Helicopter Tjungurrayi, regarded as one of the most important living Indigenous artists.

Winpurpurla, Imelda’s sacred country is joined by Wirrimanu, Minyilpa, Yarki and Mungari – all important soakage or rockhole sites in and around the famous Canning Stock Route. All the works are an amazing affirmation of these artists’ painterly pointillism style. They bringing the viewer into a very remote landscape of Indigenous Australia, creating meandering, three dimensional topographical maps of the soakage waterhole sites of their beloved country.

The exhibition begins on Thursday 7th July and runs until Saturday 30th July 2016. It will be attended in person again by Imelda and this time with Ann Nowee, as they offer their country and its secrets to the Singaporean public. It is a must-see show for anyone interested in following the recent developments in Indigenous Art and an opportunity to meet two beautiful and talented proponents of one of the world’s oldest art forms.

NAIDOC 2016 EXHIBITION SINGAPORE

In partnership with the Australian High Commission, Singapore, ReDot Fine Art Gallery is honoured to display the artworks by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Exhibited at the Australian High Commission Atrium, the NAIDOC 2016 Exhibition is open to the public and runs from 5th July - 29th July 2016.

SONGLINES – THE LIVING NARRATIVE OF OUR NATION

In Australia, NAIDOC Week 2016 will run from 3rd - 10th July 2016 and is an opportunity for all Australians to come together to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Each year for NAIDOC, a theme is given to provide a focus for the celebrations.

This year’s theme is Songlines – The Living Narrative of our Nation.

For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the Dreamtime describes a time when the earth, people and animals were created by our ancestral spiritual beings. They created the rivers, lakes, plants, land formations and living creatures. Dreaming tracks are sometimes called ‘Songlines’ which record the travels of these ancestral spirits who ‘sung’ the land into life.

The National NAIDOC Committee encourages all Australians to explore and celebrate how, through Songlines, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people remain connected to Country and have been able to maintain and share sacred stories and ceremonies for tens of thousands of years.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people used Songlines to navigate vast distances and map oceans, waterholes, rivers, birds, animals, plants and hunting grounds.