Recollections: First Nations women artists from the Artbank collection

Recollections: First Nations women artists from the Artbank collection Curated by Dennis Golding Opening 29 April 2022 Exhibitions continues 30 April to 4 June 2022 The GCS Gallery is delighted to partner with Artbank to present Recollections.

Recollections brings together a selection of works

by First Nations artists from the Artbank collection.

With a focus on women artists, these artworks trace generational experiences across time and place, linking traditional and contemporary expressions of artistic practice.

Curated by Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay artist, curator and educator Dennis Golding, Recollections draws connections from artists from across Australia’s vast landscape and through generations of lived experience. In this selection of artworks we see landscapes and experiences change from desert to city to saltwater and beyond, yet each artwork shares the memories of the women who came before it and the knowledge, strength and responsibility they knowingly passed down.

The Grace Cossington Smith Gallery presents this exhibition to further embed Abbotsleigh’s commitment to diversity within the school environment. Abbotsleigh highly values its partnerships with Yalari and the AISNSW Waratah Project. Yalari is a not-for-profit organisation that offers quality, secondary education scholarships at leading Australian boarding schools for Indigenous children from regional, rural and remote communities. The Waratah Project has laid foundations of how plans of change can be put into practice to better support our First Nations students.

Recollections provides a unique opportunity for conversation around the issues and narratives presented by First Nations women artists.

Recollections Dennis Golding

Recollections brings together a selection of works

by First Nations women who trace generational experiences across time and place that links memory with traditional and contemporary expressions of artistic practice. Each of the artists’ work extend stories of strength, resilience, cultural practice and caring for knowledge and children.

Karla Dickens, Pound-for-pound #8, 2019. Artbank Collection

As a kid growing up in the inner-city suburb of Redfern, I remember being surrounded by large scale paintings made by my mother and grandmother. These paintings varied from different mediums such as canvas, textiles and everyday objects. Recollections reminds me of the stories my mother and grandmother painted that were centred around their own experiences as Aboriginal women. I remember seeing silhouettes of women who were depicted from a different time and landscapes. These works featured mothers sitting down with their children sharing food and water. Upon reflection, I grow more understanding that these paintings share continued practices through generations of women who nurture their children and pass down their knowledge. My mother handed me the paintbrush at four, and since then the brush has transformed into a very powerful tool that allows me, like many other Indigenous artists, to re-write histories and reclaim stories from our own perspectives.

Julie Dowling is a Badimaya First Nations woman and artist. Her style of work draws mainly from Western traditions of portraiture while contextualising portraits with Indigenous Australian influences of Papunya Tula dot painting techniques. By using Indigenous and non-Indigenous expressions of artistic practice, Dowling is challenging the categorical boundaries between life experience, culture, race, class and histories.

Sharing truthful narratives of place, history and culture is a key motivation in Dowling’s work. To unveil these truths, Dowling uses portraits of herself, ancestors, family and people who share common experiences to remind the viewer of Aboriginal custodianship and their survival.

Sharing is also a common theme within Dowling’s practice. The artist paints only when family and people are around her which reflect the shared experiences of Aboriginal culture and community.

Dowling explains: ‘‘I don’t do paintings without people around, I don’t feel like the work’s accomplished anything unless it’s been through the mill of the family” (Dowling, 2005) Dowling’s 1999 painting The Ungrateful refers to the children who were stolen from their families by government authorities and ‘adopted’ into white families. I’m intrigued by the myriad of ways a viewer can perceive this painting, primarily because the work invites you to look directly in the eyes of the young children as they look back at you. Dowling allows the viewer to ‘see through our eyes, as oppressed peoples, to have compassion and respond humanely, and to celebrate our survival (Dowling, 2005). Beyond this, I was drawn to Dowling’s practice and particularly this painting because there are many layers and qualities that are used to provoke the audience to feel an emotion that is somewhat confronting about Australia’s history.

history and contemporary experiences as First Nations people. This is called transgenerational trauma. Dowling has linked the experiences of her ancestors with First Nations people today, in which the process of removing Indigenous children from their families continues through foster care systems and juvenile detention.

Dowling is fearless, honest and shows great strength in her work to share truthful narratives.

The artist’s paintings are visual recounts of memory, experience and history that speaks through contemporary life and often critiques social and political climates of her people.

Many artists in this exhibition, like Dowling, practice art to share truths and stories that connect them to their family, ancestors, and Country. The artworks are visual reflections that are healing, strengthened, bold and accessible.

They are multi-layered with realities that connect past with the present and future of First Nations cultural identity.

Dennis Golding is a Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay artist, curator and producer based on Gadigal Land. His practice draws from his own personal memories of growing up in Sydney’s Redfern, reclaiming Aboriginal history and identity, and forming a new dialgoue to critique social, political and cultural representations of race and identity.

Bibliography

The Ungrateful is a reminder of the Stolen Generations during the 1950s, 60s and 70’s in Australia. Dowling reflects on this colonial past because the trauma is carried through new generations which then becomes a part of our

DOWLING, C. (2005). Julie Dowling: Biography. Retrieved from National Gallery of Australia: http://nga.gov.au/Exhibition/NIAT07/ Detail.cfm?MnuID=7&SubMnuID=1&BioArtistIR N=18776&IRN=32619 [accessed July 3, 2012] Dowling, J. (2005). Interview with Julie Dowling, sound recording. (J. Bannister, Interviewer)

Banduk MARIKA Guya and Bapi, 1985 Marrma Miyapunu Ga Mjarirrimala, 1985 Print Linocut #3700, 3702

Banduk Mamburra Wananamba Marika AO (1954–2021) was an artist and printmaker from Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia. She was a member of the Rirratjingu clan of the Yolngu people, whose traditional land is Yalangbara. Marika was of the first woman to be taught the Rirratjinu clan designs that were normally the domain of men by her father. She went on to become an influential printmaker, also committing herself to the pursuit of copyright protection for Aboriginal artists, and more recently taking up the cause of land management.

These works show Marika’s characteristic boldness and dynamism. She uses decisive lines, which are made possible by the medium of the linocut, to depict the animals that swim in the waters around her, including fish, sea turtles and sea snakes, at the same time capturing the movement and ripples of the water.

Marika, along with the Rirratjingi clan and MAGNT, worked together to publish 'Yalangbara: Art of the Djang'kawu, an ancestral spirit', in 2009.

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Violet PETYARRE Ntange, 1991 Painting Synthetic polymer paint on canvas #7275

Violet Petyarre, of the Alyawarre and Eastern Anmatyerre clans, was born around 1942 at Atnangkere, an important water soakage area at Utopia Station, north west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. Petyarre began making art in 1977 working in batik and woodblock printing. In 1988 she started painting and her works relate to her country around Utopia, traditional ceremonial designs and stories she inherited from her father. Petyarre's stories are the Mountain Devil Lizard Dreaming, Emu Dreaming and Awelye (Ceremonial Body Painting Story).

This work is another of Petyarre’s stories 'Ntange' (grass seed dreaming) which references the ceremonial designs women paint onto their bodies. The work shows three clear clumps of grass swaying in the wind. The dots create a shimmering energy around the grass but also symbolise the seed of the native grasses. The women collect and grind the seed into a paste or flour to make damper, an important staple food. The work affirms the bounty that is found in the desert.

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Judy WATSON the confetti of empire, 1995 Painting Mixed media #9341

A direct descendent of the Waanyi clan, Judy Watson was born in Queensland in 1959. Today she is recognised as one of Australia’s foremost contemporary artists. Watson represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1997. More recently she was one of the artists selected for the international commission of contemporary Indigenous art from Australia that heralded the opening of the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris.

Indigeneity is a central issue in Watson’s work. Her painting has often been described as autobiographical, but it is work that emerges out of the relationship between her family history, a more general history of Indigenous identity and politics, and her intuitive use of abstract painting.

'The confetti of empire' is typical of Watson's diaphanous paintings and their luminous colours. She has spoken about her interest in the subject of nuclear testing in the Pacific (the piece was completed during her studio stay in France). She approaches these tests as yet another in the on-going legacy of colonisation.

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Kitty KANTILLA Tunga (bark basket), 1997 Sculpture Natural earth pigments on bark, fibre string #9575

Kitty Kantilla (Kutuwulumi Purawarrumpatu) (1928-2003) produced a complex and rich body of work. Kantilla’s work continued the Tiwi tradition of creating original designs from abstract patterns as an extension of body painting. Kantilla’s designs often refer to specific bones or creases in the body and her work in general refers specifically to her skin group – fire. This work is related to a major driver of Kantilla's oeuvre, the pukamani, or funerary ritual, which involves the production of tutini, carved and painted grave posts, parmagini armbands and bark tunga baskets.

This work is a tunga which is filled with food during Pukamani for the dancers to eat. When the ceremony is over and all the food is eaten the baskets are often upturned and placed over the top of Pukamani poles.

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Tracey MOFFATT Up in the Sky #12, 1997 Up in the Sky #25, 1997 Print Photolithographic offset print #9689-90

Tracey Moffatt’s work in photography, film and video has long evidenced her fascination in the visual representations of various cultures, tropes and genres. Influenced by popular culture and film, Moffatt's images combine melodrama with politics pertinent to our time. Her narratives often take the form of staged tableaux, about which she says: "I’ve made films … but in between I’ve always made photographs, and the photographs, have always, in a sense, felt like small little mini films."

'Up in the Sky' is a poetic and cinematic series created for New York's DIA Center, made up of 25 mysterious and dramatic vignettes. They present a complex mix of race and gender relations within a generic Australian 'wasteland'. As film critic Adrian Martin has put it, Moffatt "collects the snapshots of an eternally recurring melodrama of land, settlement and violence".

Moffatt's photographic work has been exhibited in countless exhibitions in Australia and abroad since 1989. She has held over one hundred solo exhibitions of her work in Europe, the USA and Australia, including representation in the Venice Biennale in 1997 and 2017.

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REA rea:code - Cue Play, 1998 rea:code - She Breaks, 1998 Photography Digital cibachrome print #9762-63

REA is a new media artist born in 1962 on Gamilaroi country in NSW who uses new technologies to question our assumptions of contemporary Indigenous art. In 1998, Rea declared: “I am always asking the question, whose body is this?”.She added that, being made by an Indigenous Australian artist – particularly a female one – her art practice often takes up the concerns articulated by writer Katherine Mansfield a century or so ago: “How many selves? True to one’s self, but which self?”

In these works ‘Cue Play’ and ‘She Breaks’, the representation of women is put into the context of the pool hall. For example, ‘She Breaks’ shows the pin up on the back of playing cards as the back drop to her intervention. REA’s imagery, with its irony and sense of play and sarcasm, undercuts the often masculine and sometimes violent space of the pool hall.

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Kitty KANTILLA Pumpuni Jilamara (Good Design), 1998 Print Screenprint #10084

Kitty Kantilla (Kutuwulumi Purawarrumpatu) (1928–2003) produced a complex and rich body of work. Kantilla’s work continued the Tiwi tradition of creating original designs from abstract patterns as an extension body painting. Kantilla’s designs often refer to specific bones or creases in the body and her work in general refers specifically to her skin group – fire. This work is related to a major driver of Kantilla's oeuvre, the pukamani, or funerary, ritual When asked about her work she often replied: 'It's from the old times'. This work is derived from the body decorations used by Kantilla’s father and grandfather, honouring them with the title, ‘Pumpuni Jilamara, “Good Design”.’

Kantilla was involved in numerous solo and group exhibitions and her work is held in most state galleries in Australia. A retrospective of her work was held at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2007.

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Julie DOWLING The Ungrateful, 1999 Painting Synthetic polymer paint, oil and gold on canvas #10256

Julie Dowling was born in Perth in 1969 and grew up in a strongly matriarchal Nyoongar family. Her mother is from the Yamatji-Budimya language group of the Gascoyne and Murchison region of Western Australia. Conveying an unapologetically personal narrative in her work, Dowling comments on Aboriginality, hidden histories and the trauma of the Stolen Generations. Her work thus conflates powerfully the personal and the political.

This painting refers to Dowling’s Auntie who, at the age of two, was taken from her family by government authorities and adopted to a white family, before returning home to her Geraldton community. Dowling says: “Many years later, Auntie found that the ‘mother’ had returned her because she was a ‘spoilt and ungrateful child in need of discipline’”. Dowling titled this work 'The Ungrateful' to provoke the question: “Who is ungrateful – the white mother or the black child? The painting has functioned as a way for Auntie to talk about and resolve this one part of her childhood and hopefully acts as document to Auntie’s survival and courage.”

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Dorothy NAPANGARDI Karntakurlangu Jukurrpa Salt on the Mina Mina, 2002 Painting Synthetic polymer paint on canvas #10986-89

Indigenous artists often paint country as a way of establishing ownership to that place, of narrating important stories located there, and as a way of manifesting connection to protocols, law and spituality through the country depicted.

Dorothy Napangardi, a Warlpiri artist born at Yuendumu in the Tanami desert in the Northern Territory has painted her custodial country near Lake Mckay, north of Yuendumu. It is a place made up water soakages that exist as claypans, where small areas of the earth dry out and lift at the edges, becoming delineated by salt; the dotted design graphically illustrating this. This women’s area, where Napangardi and Napanangka groups gathered to collect karlangu (digging sticks) is a hugely significant site, and one that the artist has recreated endlessly to reaffirm the constancy of connection to her land, where the Yuendumu exist at the centre of this world.

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Therese RITCHIE Cry, 2005 State of Origin 1, 2005 Photography Digital print #11562-63

Therese Ritchie has worked as a photographer in Hong Kong, Sydney, Darwin and regional Northern Territory. Her practice pivots on important social justice causes, most particularly, concerning Indigenous rights. Her style borrows heavily from design and advertising aesthetics which she fuses with high art photography. She uses the power of these modes to communicate and seduce the viewer to her own ends in what she describes as “a practice of propaganda”, In these digital prints, 'Cry' and 'State of Origin 1', Ritchie combines the figurative and the landscape genres, showing Darwin Harbour and parkland in the background while in the foreground are Indigenous figures implied by dark skin. Overlaid on their bodies are replications of internal organs suggesting a universal humanity in all beings, one that questions human and race relations. The images are persuasively charged with an atmosphere of political tension, made more potent by their alluring aesthetic qualities.

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Judy WATSON vessel with shells, 2006 Painting Pigment, pastel, charcoal, oil crayon and varnish on canvas #11652

A direct descendent of the Waanyi clan, Judy Watson was born in the coastal hinterland town of Mundubbera, Queensland in 1959, and grew up in Brisbane. Today she is recognised as one of Australia’s foremost contemporary artists. In 1995, Watson won the prestigious Möet & Chandon Prize and in 1997, with two other celebrated Aboriginal artists Yvonne Koolmatrie and Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Watson represented Australia at the world renowned Venice Biennale. More recently she was one of the artists selected for the international commission of contemporary Indigenous art from Australia that heralded the opening of the Musée du Quai Branly, in January 2006.

Aboriginality is a central issue in Watson’s work. Her painting has often been described as autobiographical, but it is work that emerges out of the relationship between her family history, a more general history of Aboriginal identity and politics, and her intuitive use of abstract painting.

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Lorna FENCER NAPURRURLA Spring Water, 2000 Painting Synthetic polymer paint on canvas #13714

As the senior custodian for the Napurrula Dreamings, such as the Yam Dreaming, Lorna Napurrurla Fencer (c.1925-2006) was a highly regarded Walpiri artist who lived and worked in Lajamanu .

Napurrurla Fencer came to painting late in life, but in the 1990s quickly became known for her distinctive approach to colour, with an expressive palette that brought a to light a new vision to the stories of Yumurrpa country, in the Tanami Desert. Napurrurla Fencer painted the Napurrula-Nakamarra creation stories from the custodial site of her brother at Yurmurrpa, which refer to ceremonial digging out the first yarla (bush potato), near the underground water source.

Gift of Leslie Walton 2013. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

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Serena BONSON Wangarra 1 and 2, 2014 Sculpture Natural earth pigments and synthetic fixative on Stringybark #14144

Born in Miwirnbi, Serena Bonson lives and works in Manigrida community in the Northern Territory. Her heritage is of Djowinge moiety, the Djinang language group and she is part of the Murrungun clan. Bonson has quickly become known for her striking carvings in stringybark painted in black and white to depict the Wangarra spirits. The Wangarra play a key role in the stories of Bonson's community relating to death, birth and the transition of the spirit into the afterlife, and in rebirth. They are considered indicative of ancestral beings and deeply connected to the waterholes that are central to the stories of the clan and their connections to land.

In 2022 she was included in the Adelaide Biennale with a large installation of Wangarra spirits. Depicting the important Warraburnburn, a specific Warrawarra clan-associated spirit/devil/ghost. These two wangarra spirits were told to Bonson by her uncle Jimmy Angunguna, who also taught her the craft.

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Karla DICKENS Dancing Hounds, 2013 Howling Comrade, 2013 Walking the Dog, 2013 Drawing Found fabric, pencil, synthetic polymer paint and adhesive on board #14170-72

Lismore based artist Karla Dickens makes art about Australian history and personal experience. Most known for her assemblages and collages, Dickens, a Wiradjuri woman, is keenly aware of the power of objects and her chosen materials to speak about issues of great significance, across cultures. By choosing real found images, cut out of old books for example, or by using historical objects in her installations, the social history and human handling of the things, create an intimate and direct narrative beyond art.

In works such as these three collages from the 'Black Dog' series, Dickens deftly manipulates found textiles to touch on stories about contemporary Aboriginal identity, sexuality and mental health, underpinned by her concerns about the continued whitewashing of Australia's past. The Black Dog may through the common slang, represent depression, or it might be mroe generally a black haunting.

In her essay on Dickens's work, writer Ann Finegan notes that: "Though there might be no easy lessons, and her themes of race and justice in lesser hands might be a series of bitter pills, she has a way of charming you through a common appeal to nostalgia and the affectionate patina of age-worn things and artefacts rich with stories...she makes her point through the lingua franca of common objects and good sense."

This work was purchased in 2015 as part of the Artbank/Arts and Disability Partnership, generously supported by the NSW Department of Family and Community Services and Create NSW. ARTBANK.GOV.AU

Megan COPE The Blaktism, 2014 Time-based Work High definition digital video #14840

Megan Cope is a Quandamooka woman from North Stradbroke Island, Queensland working across paintings, video, installation and site-specific commissions. She explores the intricate relationship between environment, geography and identity. Cope often draws on toponymy (the study of place names) to disrupt myths and methodologies resulting from colonisation. She was awarded the 2015 Western Australian Indigenous Art Award and her work has been exhibited widely nationally and internationally.

“The Blaktism” was inspired by Cope’s experience obtaining her ‘Certificate of Aboriginality’. She uses parody and satire to highlight the power white Australian society, law and politics holds over the formation and legitimisation of Indigeneity. We follow a young, female ‘Fair-Skinned Aborigine’ through a fictitious sacred ceremony as her identity is authenticated by a host of Australian ‘cultural authorities’. Through parody and pop culture, Cope is able to highlight Australia’s latent racism as well as communicate Indigenous resistance.

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Rhonda SHARPE Me, the Echidna Woman, 2019 Sculpture Soft sculpture #15272

Rhonda Sharpe was born and raised in Alice Springs. She works at the Yarrenyty Arltere Artists, located in the heart of Alice Springs in the Larapinta Valley Town Camp. Sharpe discovered her interest in sewing, textiles and printmaking from her aunty.

Her work is inspired by memories of her childhood and the colour and movement of everyday life.

In 'Me, the Echidna Woman', Sharpe imagines herself as the Echidna woman who cares for injured echidnas. The large, playful soft sculpture intricately details the textural qualities of the Echidna who is protected by the biomorphic form standing over it.

Sharpe (b. 1977, Luritja) has been exhibited across Australia and has been shown in number of art prizes. Notable recent exhibitions include Sydney Biennale, Museum of Contemporary Art, 2018, Desert Mob, Araluen Art Gallery, 2018. Sharpe won the 2013 and 2015 3D award in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award.

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Dhuwarrwarr MARIKA Makassan swords and long knives, 2019 Painting Natural pigments on stringybark #15274

Dhuwarrwarr Marika is a senior Yolngu woman from the Rirratjingu clan who was born in 1946 in East Arnhem Land. As a senior state’s person for her people, Dhuwarrwarr and her family are passionate advocates of indigenous rights. Dhuwarrwarr is believed to be the first Yolngu woman to be authorised to paint sacred designs. She paints many of her father’s designs; clan leader, artist and activist Mawalan Marika.

In Makassan swords and long knives, black and white swords are painted in natural pigment onto a piece of stringy bark. This is a significant historical work that depicts an important aspect of the history of Yirrkala and their contact history. Dhurwarrwarr is the first female artist given permission to paint this important story of the meeting between the Makassans and the Aboriginal people .

She works with the traditional designs and forms contemporary aesthetic language in an innovative and unique way. Marika has had a prolific and highly acclaimed artistic career that has spanned over 45 years.

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Karla DICKENS Pound-for-pound #8, 2019 Sculpture Aluminium, vintage mattock handle, waxed linen thread, cotton string, steel pulleys, emu feathers #15278

Lismore based artist Karla Dickens is a conceptual artist of the Wiradjuri Nation. Her early practice centred on painting and collage but, in the last few years, has shifted to assemblage and institutional installation.

‘Pound-for-Pound’ was a work first shown as part of the Dickensian Circus, in The National, AGNSW, 2019. The work refers to itinerant Indigenous boxers who would travel to fights, being paid a pound for the fight. Although a tough life, the boxers were able to travel more freely and earn more money and fame than the majority of Indigenous people at the beginning of the century.

This work embodies that contradiction and has a mysterious and resonant effect. Feathers, old string, steel cable, a vintage mattock and of course the cast aluminium glove all come together for the viewer to read. The materials embody their own social history, which is a common feature of Dickens’ work. From a formal point of view is both powerful and soft, old and new, heroic but declassed, about the labouring man but also like a sacred relic.

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Marrnyula MUNUŊGURR Djapu Design, 2018 Sculpture Earth pigments on stringybark hollow pole #15404

Marrnyula Munungurr began working for the Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre in Yirrkala in the 1980’s. She still resides at Yirrkala to work at Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka as senior printmaker in the printspace. Both her mother, Noŋgirrŋa Marawili and her father, Djutjadjutja were constantly producing art with the help of their sons and daughters; she assisted her father with his sacred Djapu paintngs and this pole continues the Djapu clan designs.

During this period Marrnyula also developed her own style of narrative folk paintings.

This work is mature in that it fuses these two approaches. Based primarily on Djapu design the bulbous parts of the pole have all been turned into the shell of a turtle. You can just see the shape of the turtle under the “net” of rarrk, or lines.

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Jazz MONEY Crush, 2021 Time-based Work single-channel video #16493

Jazz Money (b. 1992) is an award-winning poet and filmmaker of Wiradjuri heritage, currently based on the beautiful sovereign lands of the Darug and Gundungurra nations. She specialises in storytelling, community collaboration and digital production, working with First Nations artists and communities to realise digital projects.

This video explores the Wiradjuri language and the colonising gaze. It is a complex work that defies easy description. The work is made up of a bilingual poem and images of a figure with flora.

Desiring and sensual, the work explores Romantic tropes of the figure and flowers, but undermines our expectations. The work plays with the colonising gaze, over land and people, and reactivates the cinematic language to give agency back to the Indigenous author. It is a study in contemporary beauty.

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Iwantja Young Women's Film Project Kungka Kuṉpu (Strong Women), 2021 Time-based Work single-channel video #16493

The Iwantja Young Women’s Film Project, is an Indigenous-led initiative to engage young female artists in Indulkana, a community located in the far north east of South Australia in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. Initially begun as an important cultural and professional development activity, the final work asserts the power and knowledge of women in the comunity. The project brought together a large number of inter-genenerational collaborators including Kaylene Whiskey, Leena Baker, Betty Muffler and Leonie Cullinan, who worked together with enthusiasm and common purpose. Lead by senior artist Yatjiki (Vicki) Cullinan, all this work culminated in the production of the 2019 short film Kungka Kunpu. The work itself embodies the approach with its high energy, connection to tradition and its formal characteristics of mashup and collaged elements.

The video is a mashup of various sources from the local to the televisual, from pop to traditional community. Kaylene Whiskey writes: “I’ve always loved watching my favourite pop stars on rage and I’m drawn to strong female performers like Tina Turner, Dolly Parton and Cher – they have the best outfits too…

TV shows (Monkey Magic, Wonder Woman) and movies (Mad Max, Sister Act, The Wizard of Oz) are also a big influence on my work – I love mixing these characters from TV into my paintings of everyday life here in Indulkana, like Wonder Woman might be looking for mingkulpa (native tobacco) or going hunting for malu (kangaroo).”

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Dennis Golding with - Recollections, Grace Cossington Smith Gallery, 2022

Dennis Golding with - Julie Dowling, The Ungrateful, 1999 Artbank Collection

Thank you Artbank would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land on which we meet, work and live. We recognise and respect their continuing connection to the land, waters and communities, and pay respect to Elders past and present and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

Artbank is an Australian Government program that has directly supported living Australian artists for over four decades of operation. Since opening in 1980 Artbank has grown to be one of the largest and most diverse collections of contemporary Australian art in the world. Our unique leasing scheme brings Australian contemporary artworks to the public in boardrooms, foyers and homes across the country.

The Artbank collection is especially proud to include some of the best examples of contemporary Indigenous Art in Australia. Artbank endeavours to continue to support First Nations artists to tell important stories through their art. Artbank is privileged to play a small part in sharing these stories with Australia and the world.

The Grace Cossington Smith Gallery presents this exhibition to further embed Abbotsleigh’s commitment to diversity within the school environment.

Abbotsleigh highly values its partnerships with Yalari and the AISNSW Waratah Project. Yalari is a notfor-profit organisation that offers quality, secondary education scholarships at leading Australian boarding schools for Indigenous children from regional, rural and remote communities. The Waratah Project has laid foundations of how plans of change can be put into practice to better support our First Nations students. Recollections provides a unique opportunity for conversation around the issues and narratives presented by First Nations women artists.

About Artbank

Artbank is a unique Government artist support and access initiative. For over 40 years we have supported thousands of Australian artists, building an impressive collection of over 10,000 artworks.

Artbank artworks enrich government, business and residential spaces, exposing a wide variety of people to contemporary Australian art.

Through leasing works to individuals, companies and governments, Artbank lives up to its policy principle of promoting broad access to Australian contemporary art. Through our leasing of artworks to Australian embassies and overseas posts, we provide access to Australian contemporary art in approximately 70 countries across the globe.

Artbank has similarities with other collecting institutions in how we undertake aspects of the business, but we are very different in both why we collect artwork and how we promote Australian art to stakeholders, clients and the public.

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This allows for a different, more everyday type of engagement with artworks than a gallery or museum exhibition offers. By displaying works in offices, government buildings and homes, we present artworks to many who would never visit a public or private gallery, breaking down traditional barriers to this art form.

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The Artbank collection was founded with an endowment of 600 artworks from the National Collection (now the National Gallery of Australia) and has since grown to include more than 10,000 works spanning media including painting, sculpture, video and photography.

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