In June/July 2015 NCCA ran its second Artists’ Camp in the Top End for 6 Indonesian artists from Bali. For the first time the Camp travelled to the Centre and also included two women artists, Ni Nyoman Sani and Suryani. desert trail (Gallery 2) is a small selection of their work focusing on their time in and around Alice Springs including a visit to Uluru. The exhibition is a prelude to the main Artists’ Camp 2015 exhibition to be held in Darwin towards the end of the year, and to also include the work of Made Budhiana, Wayan Wirawan, Made Sudibia, Made Suarimbawa (Dalbo), Rupert Betheras and Lionel Possum.
Ni Nyoman Sani is one of Bali’s leading contemporary artists renowned for her depictions of the female form. She has been an active member of Bali’s Seniwati Gallery for women artists, and also advocates for the nexus of spirituality, art and healing. She is a graduate of the STSI Art University, Bali, and her work the subject of the 2006 publication The paintings of Ni Nyoman Sani by I Wayan Sukra and Vidyasuri Utami. Sani was represented in the group exhibition Bali: Return Economy at Fremantle Arts Centre, 2014. Her practice combines painting, sound/music/performance, installation, photography/film and fashion design.
Nanik Suryani is an emerging artist originally from East Java who has been based in Bali over the past decade. She is primarily a painter with an interest in the Consensusism style characterised by the work of Dutch artist Ton Schulten and an emphasis on abstract geometric composition in balance with the roots of impressionism and the elements of shape, light and color. ‘Although my parents sent me to University to study foreign literature and languages, it turned out that I am an artist’, writes Suryani, who has held several solo exhibitions in Bali since 2013.
The Artists’ Camp is sponsored by the NT Government, Commonwealth Bank Indonesia, and the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade (Australia Indonesia Institute).