FIRST LIGHT
First Light Curator Liz McNiven, artist and post-graduate student at the University of Adelaide, presents an exhibition of work by Indigenous Australian artists at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space. As part of a special program for the Canberra Centenary, the show pays tribute to Indigenous cultural traditions, knowledge systems and worldview. The narrative extends from the present, beyond colonization, to the first sunrise, to the first campfire, to the first peoples. Focused on artistic practices guided by light, from natural light to the many kinds of artificial light or effects available to contemporary artists, the artworks shed light on the past century in the national capital from an Indigenous perspective.
In acknowledging Indigenous sovereignty and the ongoing effects of colonialism, the show examines the binary relationships of light and shadow, of day and night, of black and white, of colonized and colonizers. The show highlights the continuing relationship with light and the ways cultures and traditions adapt to changing notions of light. It reflects the influence of the city in shaping the artists and their works and the artist’s contribution to shaping understandings of the city.
From a diversity of Indigenous nations and with a cultural connection to the ACT the artists include photographers Brenda L Croft, James Tylor, Tjanara Jali Talbot, Gary Lee, and Kerry Reed-Gilbert, glass artists Lyndy Delian and Jenni Kemarre Martiniello, installation artist Jonathan Jones and filmmaker Rachel Perkins.
Larrakia artist Gary Lee, a photographer, curator, academic and writer, dynamically extended the parameters of Aboriginal arts in the ACT. Interested in both the essence and the aesthetic of the male beauty, Lee challenges perceptions, stereotypes and labels in his interpretation of the form. In this show, he presents Robbie 21, 2010 a portrait of a fresh faced young Aboriginal man from Queanbeyan optimistically dreaming of the future and Chris 27, 2011 a nude image of a young white man at ease with his youthful masculinity. This image seamlessly transposes the historic binary of blackness and whiteness, of photographer and muse. Reflecting the apparent innocence of the piece Lee explains, “Chris’s nude body is abstracted by sunlight through the window. I like the softness and vulnerability of the male nude here.”
With a career spanning three decades, works in leading national and international collections, an academic record including an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Sydney, over twenty years experience in the industry and a thriving creative practice Brenda L Croft of the Gurindji/Mutpurra peoples brings a wealth of artistry to this exhibition. She presents three works from the series fever (you give me) 2000, they are fever, contact/warra warra and Bannalon/Bennelong (Wangal)/ Warrang/Supply.
Inspired by a rural childhood and a culturally diverse ancestry, experimental and alternative fine art photographer James Tylor utilizes the 19th Century Ambrotype photographic technique to explore first contact between the first peoples of Australia and New Zealand and their British colonizers. This drama plays out in twelve glass photographs from the series past the measuring stick, showing the hybridization of
the traditional tool-making techniques of these disparate peoples. Tylor states, “This series attempts to re-contextualize my ancestral history by creating a platform where Māori, Aboriginal and Anglo-Australian cultures merge into one free of conflict.”
The experience and knowledge of her extended family of Aboriginal peoples fuels the creative passion of multi-disciplinary artist Kerry ReedGilbert, a Wiradjuri woman from central NSW. Reed-Gilbert keeps the dream of Aboriginal sovereignty and Treaty alive in her artworks, writings, and activism. A celebrated landscape photographer with works held in leading collecting institutions and widely exhibited across Australia, this grassroots artist brings her spirit of conviction to this exhibition.
Wathaurong artist Lyndy Delian regularly exhibits her work with numerous pieces in major public and private collections. As a curator, teacher, and co-founder of the ACT Indigenous Textile and Glass Artists Group (ITAG), Delian nurtures the development of emerging Indigenous artists in the ACT region. Her works shines light on her peoples’ maintenance of their ancestral connections to their cultural heritage.
Majoring in Photomedia in a Bachelor of Fine Arts at UNSW, Tjanara Jali Talbot grew up in her grandmother’s country of Wellington, NSW. The works of this talented, emerging artist reflects her engagement with her peoples’ cultural heritage and their political and social history. Conceptually interested in notions of race and identity Talbot provokes her audience’s attention.
Jennifer A Kemarre Martiniello, an Arrernte artist, writer, educator and Director of Kemarre Arts, represents ACT Indigenous interests on numerous boards and committees both locally and nationally. She holds a BA (Hons), ANU, a BA (Vis), CITA, and postgraduate qualifications. In this exhibition she seeks, “to invoke the organic ‘weaves’ and the interplays of light and forms of traditional woven fish traps in these hot blown glass works, and pay tribute to the survival of the oldest living weaving practices in the world.” Her work White Mist Rising “is a collective ‘mapping’ of personal family journeys and survival behind the obliterating white mist of dominant colonial histories and containment.”
The show presents an early works of Canberra born Arrernte filmmaker Rachel Perkins, One Night the Moon, 2001. Perkins superbly contrasts the physical and psychological nuances of light and shadow within a musical synthesis of opposing worldviews.
Sydney-based, Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi artist Jonathan Jones, known for his site-specific installations, explores Indigenous traditions, relationships and ideas through interventions into space that use light, subtle shadow and the repetition of shape. Recycling and repurposing he conveys relationships between community and individual, personal and public, and historical and contemporary. Exhibiting nationally and internationally his works appear in major public and private collections. Quoting the principles of ephemeral architecture in reinterpreting and breaking the rules, Jones’ light sculptures create an abstract architectural space evoking shared memory and encouraging the reimagining of shared space.
Liz McNiven July 2013