Cooee Art was established in 1981. From 2023, Australia’s oldest exhibiting Indigenous-focused gallery. Relaunched in 2023 as Cooee Art Leven, the business is now solely owned by longtime co-owner and Director Mirri Leven. In its new era, the gallery will be run as a space of collaboration, working directly with First Nations curators, art centres, and represented artists.
The curator of the Inaugural exhibition was Kate Constantine (aka Konstantina) the only exhibiting Gadigal artist of the Eora Nation, whose land is host to the fair and reflected in her work.
COVER IMAGE DETAILS
1. Rex E. Battarbee
Ghost Gum, 1943
watercolour on paper on board, 40 x 40 cm; 66 x 65 cm (framed)
2. Albert Namatjira
Glen Helen Gorge, 1943
watercolour on paper on board, 40 x 30 cm; 45 x 55 cm (framed)
Looking to the past and seeing ahead
To reflect the dichotomy of Cooee Art Leven’s gallery model, half our booth represents the primary market wing, while the other will showcase the secondary market department, with artworks consigned to our specialists from important collections across the globe.
Going forward, Art Leven is exhibiting nonIndigenous alongside our First Nations artists, exclusively through specially curated projects. These focus on technique and transparent dialogue, offering an opportunity beyond the ordinary commercial relationship between artist and gallery, fostering an environment of openness and direct exchange between artists.
The first such project was made up of three acts, beginning with a late-June workshop at Warnayaka Arts in Lajamanu that led to Cooee Art Leven’s inaugural exhibition, country x Country, curated by Gadigal artist Konstantina. The project now concludes at Sydney Contemporary, with new works by Neil Ernest Tomkins, Kitty Napanangka Simon, and Konstantina herself. This final suite of works acts as a reflection on the project, with memory seeping into the fabric of the artists’ everyday, effecting an ongoing influence on perception as a whole.
IMAGE DETAILS:
1. Neil Ernest Tomkins in studio
2. Kitty Napanangka Simon in Country
3. Konstantina detail
