Search Results

Vexed NCCA presents Vexed, a solo exhibition by Fiona Foley in the main gallery and screen room. Taking its name from Foley’s 2013 video work which was filmed in Alice Springs, Vexed concerns the disruption to traditional courting and betrothal/marriage customs wrought by colonisation. Implicit in this scenario is the vexed and changing role of Aboriginal women on the colonial frontier. The exhibition will feature retrospective works by Foley that address the same theme, as well as a new letter-based sculpture spelling the words ‘Black Velvet’, produced in association with Brisbane-based Urban Art Projects. Fiona Foley is a Badtjala artist from Fraser Island (Thoorgine), Queensland, who resides in Brisbane. She is one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists; in 2014 she was awarded the Australia Council’s Visual Arts Award, recognised as a ‘fearless advocate for Indigenous political and social equality’. 1/0

Window Shopping Through projected animation of mannequins, Halliday takes a glimpse into a world inhabited by beautiful, stern, plastic people – figures who attract the eye with there seductive and glamorous affectations but who also repulse, with their cold stylised and sterile visages that reveal materialistic and simplistic desires. 1/0

Once Upon a Toy Town Congratulations to Siying Zhou – NCCA 2013 Overall Winner, Clifford Relph – Highly Commended Award, Joel Mitchell – Honourabe Mention Award, Andy Ewing – Honourable Mention Award and David Wickens – NCCA Professional Development Award. A big THANK YOU to this years sponsors of the Artists Awards: Brian Tucker Accounting, Cope Sensitive Freight, Sky City Darwin, Parap Fine Foods, Jacksons Drawing Supplies, Art Monthly and All About Tea and Coffee in Parap. 1/0

COnCREtE Opening Friday 27 May, 6-8pm In many a Kalymnian household anywhere around the world can be found a proud mantle display of sea sponges. Once the main source of income for the island of Kalymnos, the sponge is both a commodity and a symbol of identity. Emerging artist and curator Koulla Roussos plays with concepts of fluidity and the concrete, incorporating the iconic sea sponge as a metaphor and tool for interrogating subjective manifestations of identity; asking the question, “How do I materialise my hybrid, fluid subjectivity for the anonymous spectator?” COnCREtE is an installation-based work incorporating sculpture, digital print, video and found objects. Koulla was born in Darwin. In 1987 she graduated from the University of Adelaide in Economics, and in 1993 with Honours in Law from the Northern Territory University. She was admitted to practice as a Barrister and Solicitor in the Supreme Court of NT in 1995, and is currently a barrister with John Toohey Chambers, Darwin, specialising in criminal law. Koulla is also a practicing artist and curator. She has undertaken postgraduate studies in Art History and professes a keen interest in exploring the ways contemporary art can engage with public spaces and create new understandings of a place. She has curated several exhibitions in Darwin including Monsters from the Black Lagoon (2015), TaNTtrum (with Jonathan Saunders, 2013/2014), Origin of a Species (2014), Flash Art (2013), and a year-long monthly program of arthouse film at NCCA (The Vault, 2015). 1/0

Dawn Beasley: Botanically Porcelain 3 March - 15 April 2023 Dawn Beasley is an artist based in Darwin, on Larrakia Country, whose creative practice examines the relationships between humans and the natural world we occupy. Using forms found in nature as a point of reference, Beasley creates porcelain sculptures that range from exact renderings of specific species to entirely otherworldly creations. These become part of larger installations that immerse the viewer in a world of uncharted delicacy; their dramatic scale mirrors the magnitude of the subject matter they bring into focus. As the limits of what our natural environment can sustain continue to be pushed, Beasley speaks of growth, resilience and survival. In Dawn Beasley’s Botanically Porcelain, a path winds through more than one thousand fragile sculptures. As you watch each careful step you take, you become entirely conscious of your body within the space, and your connection to the delicate objects that surround you. Sensing their vulnerability, you find yourself imagining the possibilities of what could happen. Alive with the knowledge that just one misstep could wreak havoc and destruction, impossible to reverse. Standing in the middle of this floor-based installation, the enormous power we have as individuals is revealed. The Northern Centre for Contemporary Art is delighted to open its 2023 artistic program with a solo exhibition of new and recent work by Darwin based artist Dawn Beasley. Since 1989, NCCA has played a crucial role in showcasing Northern Territory artists, providing a critical platform for them to develop and exhibit ambitious and experimental art. A visit to Beasley’s studio at Tactile Arts quickly reveals the nature of her process-driven practice. Surrounded by an array of porcelain forms in various stages of their life-cycle, Beasley describes the production of her new work, Husk Redux, 2022-23. An experimental process of trial and error that involves slip-laden cheesecloth, bursting balloon casts and constructing sculptures within sculptures, it is a complex method that she has refined to perfection. Beasley is a master of her medium – pushing the limits of porcelain, literally, to breaking point. Seed 2022-23, a site-specific installation developed for this instalment of the exhibition, saw months of work culminate in a few short smashes. Captured in slow motion by film director Tim Shepard, Beasley’s practice is brought into the digital dimension for the first time, projected across the graveyard of broken sculptures that litters the gallery floor. Beasley’s floor-based installations each begin with a bed of rough gravel or perlite, which contrast with the smooth surface of porcelain, and evoke stubborn sprouts growing from arid dirt. This is echoed in Fiona Pow’s responsive poem Alchemy, ‘Watch. Green flutes needle through ash blankets, spry and interested. Feeling tendrils up into ether…’, and again in the green glass shoots by Debra Senjushcenko that peek through Seed 2022-23. In this body of work, Beasley tells a story of humans, nature, and survival. Her porcelain sculptures are at once fragile and enduring – a message of resilience that has never been more relevant to Northern Australia’s natural landscape. With her largest installations yet, Beasley has transformed NCCA into a world of abundance and new life. Walking through Botanically Porcelain might make you feel fragile at first, but you’ll leave stronger – with a newfound connection to the delicate world around you. Catalogue Curator Artist Dawn Beasley 1/0

Melaeluca 1/0

GALLERY FLOORPLAN

People 1/5 ABOUT NCCA Based in Darwin on Larrakia Country, the Northern Centre for Contemporary Art (NCCA) is an independent arts organisation that connects audiences with NT, national and international artists through contemporary art exhibitions and programs. NCCA is a forum for ideas and critical engagement with social, aesthetic and conceptual concerns relevant to Northern Australia and Asia. OUR VALUES Exchange – Connect and engage artists and audiences across the Northern Territory, Australia and Asia Experimentation – Be ambitious and provide a critical space for artists and curators to take risks. Supportive – encourage artists and audiences to engage with challenging ideas to think about the world differently. Diversity – to be diverse and inclusive in who we are and what we do. Integrity - Conduct business with respect, honesty and transparency. ABOUT STAFF Petrit Abazi Director Zoë Slee Assistant Curator Bill Davies Operations Lukas Bendel Technologist board BOARD Secretary Chair Alastair Shields Secretary Dr Wendy Garden Secretary Lee Harrop Secretary Treasurer Susan Kirkman Secretary Neville Pantazis Secretary Secretary April Young Secretary Helene George PATRONS PRINCIPAL PATRON Dr Prash P. PATRONS Michela and Adrian Fini Ken McGregor Yavuz Gallery Glen Foster mark Chapman Paul Johnstone Matt Ward Michael Fox Nicholas Thompson Don Whyte SUPPORTERS Dr Denise Salvestro Mira Joksovic Biddy & Chris Aarnholt Alastair Shields Brent Potter MLA Geoff & Fran Sharples Dominik Mirsch Dr Paul Emery Dennis Bezzant Ynes Sanz Merridy Ritcher

1 Million Years NSW-based Hayley West employs soft sculpture and video-based performance to address persistent themes in her work relating to the ‘vestigial’: the embodiment of memory, archive and grief. 1/0

Raftopolous / Glenti 1/0

Skin Skin alludes to my people and my totem, the crocodile; it tells of the salt water people and the saltwater crocodile, the key to my totem. Skin works on different levels: it can be read as a close up of a reptile’s skin, as a landscape both seen from a distance and close-up details of rocks and sand. The armoured skin of the reptile is shown by the built up serrations of the paint applied by hand or directly from the tube. Layer upon layer of paint is reapplied over many weeks building and creating the textured 3D result. I want the viewer to feel the presence of the reptile, run their hands across its skin, know its strength and also see the country from where it came, where I come from. Contemporary in appearance; the dot-painting technique is imaginative given more weight and more paint, the thick slab floats on an apparently watery surface. Skin is both a contemporary abstract work and a painting that embodies indigenous traditions and meanings that stretch back over time. Culture is an important part of my life and plays an equally important part in my art. The Bonson family’s culture has been lost over the years, and together through our artwork my sister and I are both trying to regain it to trace it back and find it again. We know the basics and we’re just trying to find our place in it all. Painting is a way for me to share my personal view of the world and my place in it. My great grandmother was from Badu in the Torres Strait Islands and her eldest son is my grandfather, Donald Bonson, senior. He is the inspiration for my work. He says everything is connected, the land, the water and us. Like the crocodile we are saltwater people with an ancient lineage. 1/0

priNT Launch: Friday 4 March 6-8pm with performative print by Mats Undén As the Print Council of Australia (PCA) celebrates its 50th year, NCCA is giving over galleries 1 and 2 and the Boxset to priNT: a representative exhibition of printmaking from across the Northern Territory over the last 10 years. Jobling explains, “This exhibition will show the diversity and depth of the work of over 20 artists mostly working from home studios… We have tried to choose works that fulfil the PCA advocacy of promoting prints and printmakers, works on paper, artists’ books and zines and collecting art on paper… I have especially chosen works that are experimental and challenge the conventional view of the print.” priNT focuses on large-scale, 3D and highly experimental works from both indigenous and non-indigenous artists including: Rob Brown, Franck Gohier, Jacqueline Gribben, Gadaman Gurruwiwi, Mikey Gurruwiwi, Colin Holt, Winsome Jobling, Glynnis Lee, Chips Mackinolty, Barrata Marika, Munuy’ngu Marika, Tara McDonald, Anne McMaster, Jemma Petch, Mamburra Raymond, Therese Ritchie, Merran Sierakowski, Neridah Stockley, Kerrie Taylor, Mats Undén, Gurmarrwuy Yunupingu, Nena Zanos. Winsome Jobling has exhibited both nationally and internationally since 1990. Solo shows include: Earthworks, Nomad Gallery, Darwin; Winsome Paper, Kawing project exhibitions at the National University in Manila and Baguio, Philippines; Journal, IAPMA Congress Flinders University, Adelaide. Selected Group exhibitions include: Sofia International Paper Art Biennial, Bulgaria; Watermarks, IAPMA Conference Exhibition, Fabriano, Italy; Botanica 1, Godinymayin Yijard Rivers Arts and Culture Centre, Katherine; Fibre Face 3, Jogjakarta, Indonesia. In 2008 Jobling received a Churchill Fellowship researching Handmade Paper for Printmaking. Mats Undén has over 20 years’ experience working as a professional printmaker, collaborating with artists both nationally and internationally. Undén is also a practicing sound artist, researching the relation between sound, moves and mark-making. 1/0