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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

Punuku Tjukurpa Opening night, Friday 23 June, from 5pm Punuku Tjukurpa is a nationally touring exhibition comprising around 80 mainly wooden objects (punu) made by artists from Maruku Arts, an art centre based at the Aboriginal community of Mutitjulu, near Uluru in the Central Desert. Representing the work of 11 Anangu artists, the wooden objects include carvings of various animals, piti (carved bowls), tjara (shields), miru (spearthrowers), kali (boomerangs), tjutinya (clubs), and walka boards. The works are made recently as well as drawing on Maruku’s archive (dating from the mid-1980s) which also includes photography, film and signage that also features in the exhibition. The exhibition intends overall to cultivate a deeper appreciation of punu, and a deeper appreciation of its relationship to Tjukurpa (Dreaming, Law), i.e., that while some objects may be functional (as in bowls and shields), they can also express ceremonial and sacred dimensions. Punuku Tjukurpa is curated by Steve Fox and presented in association with Maruku Arts (Maruku@Uluru). Steve Fox is an ex-Director of NCCA (then 24hr Art) and also ex-Director of Maruku Arts (1997-2006) during which time he helped to establish the careers of the exhibition’s artists. He previously curated a major exhibition of work by Maruku artists at Gallerie Handwerk, Munich (Germany). Maruku Arts was established in 1984, initially an extension of Amata Arts and Crafts. From the outset it focused on making punu, with work initially coming from Amata, Uluru, Docker River, Wingellina, Pipalyatjara, Indulkana, Mimili, Fregon and Ernabella. Over time other communities found representation through Maruku. Today it represents around 900 Anangu artists from over 20 remote communities across the Central and Western deserts. Punuku Tjukurpa is a Visions of Australia touring exhibition from Artback NT: Arts Development and Touring in conjunction with the Australia Council for the Arts and Northern Territory Department of Tourism & Culture. 1/0

Barkly Satellites 1/0

Domestic Bliss The works in Domestic Bliss (showing in NCCA’s Screenroom) are made by emerging artists and first-time collaborators Liz Grylls and Nadine Lee. Each work uses the humble tea towel as the starting point to express more than the notion of ‘Stay Calm and Keep Drying’. As a common household item, the tea towel features in this exhibition as both a canvas and an analogy for home life. Both Liz and Nadine have a number of identities including artist, parent, partner, cultural representative. It is often easy to compartmentalise each identity, however Domestic Bliss seeks to highlight that regardless of what identity an individual may have or be assumed to have, they also have ideas and thoughts that are far greater than one single identity. Liz enjoys working in a range of mediums and has used tea towels previously for works combining printed images and embroidered text, sometimes without any apparent correlation. In comparison, the embroidered text in Nadine’s tea towels raises direct questions based on the tea towel’s use and the users themselves; for example, as symbols of forced domestic help, collectables, or as pieces of art. Both Liz and Nadine live and work in Darwin. They have both completed a Bachelor of Creative Arts and Industries (Fine Arts/Visual Arts) from Charles Darwin University. Liz has completed Honours in Creative Arts and Industries (Fine Arts) at CDU while Nadine is currently completing an Honours degree (Visual Art) at CDU. Nadine has previously shown work in NCCA’s Boxset (2015). 1/0

Swells of Enchantment 1/0

The language between us Exhibition opening Thursday 18 September, 6-8pm Melbourne-based artist Nina Ross delves into linguistic domain with her digital video work The language between us (2011), a pithy play on the process of language acquisition/exchange, and showing in NCCA’s Screen Room. Her interest in the subject stems from having spent several years living in Norway, ‘learning Norwegian’, as she writes, ‘for my partner’, and grappling anew with the task of making a language one’s own. In 2013 Ross received a Master of fine art (research) degree from Monash University, Melbourne. And was awarded the Vice-Chancellor’s commendation for masters excellence for her thesis Finding a voice: An exploration of the impact of language acquisition on identity using self-protraiture performance video. 1/0

Bill Davies The Darwin Years Opening 20th Feb 2025, 6pm Exhibition runs from 20th Feb- 26th April 2025 ‘The Darwin Years’ will be a comprehensive survey exhibition celebrating three decades of the life and work of the artist Bill Davies. This solo will be the first major exhibition that traces the key moments of the artist’s oeuvre from his first exhibition with the NTU School of Fine Arts in 1995 to his most recent site-specific installations created for this exhibition in 2025. Born in South Australia in 1954, Davies is one of Darwin’s most recognisable and respected artists. He received an Associate Diploma of Fine Arts in 1995 and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2001, both from Charles Darwin University. In addition to his art practice, he is well- known as a sign writer and art installer. An honorary Life Member and frequent exhibitor and volunteer at NCCA, his accolades include the 24HR Art Emerging Artist Award in 2001 and second prize in the NCCA Members’ Show in 2022. His creative practice encompasses loose, expressionistic charcoal drawings and hard-edge abstract paintings. A deeper, sustained analysis of Davies’ work reveals a more complex, conceptual and dynamic art practice that has evolved over time with some notable common threads. Davies’ works regularly and willingly succumb to the forces of the unexpected, the spontaneous and the unplanned. Chance and accident play a big role in the process of his image-making. Under his hard-edge abstract paintings lie commentaries on the Australian dream and its obsession with real estate. His abstract expressionist works on paper are infused in and influenced by the natural environment in which they are made. The painstakingly hand-painted reproductions of metro signs from around the world are both a nod to the artist’s experience as a sign writer and an acknowledgment of shared global aesthetics employed in urban design. This exhibition and accompanying publication will trace the salient moments in Davies’ life and work. Drawing on loans from private collections, local art institutions and the artist’s archive and studio, the show will bring together the Davies’ major works for the very first time reuniting and recognising a lifetime of achievement in the local arts community. Curated by Petrit Abazi 1/0

Alana Hunt: Surveilling a Crime Scene 5 October - 18 November 2023 Surveilling a Crime Scene (2019-23) examines the materialisation of non-indigenous life on Miriwoong Country—through the town of Kununurra and its surrounds. Forming gradually over the last decade of the artist’s life, the threads of this work forge a tapestry that recognises colonisation not as history but as a continuous and present violence, one that is deceptively ordinary. Co-commissioned by the Sheila Foundation’s Michela and Adrian Fini Artist Fellowship and NCCA, and supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund this suite of new work features a super 8mm film; a flip book of the film; and a constellation of clustered 35mm photographs. Together these summon the absurdities and violence that lie within our aspirations for leisure, for economic growth, and for a home. Always, on someone else’s land. This work speaks through agendas of development and colonisation and leisure, coursing through our lives and the places we hold dear. It speaks of airports and tourism, of altered ecosystems. A blown up mountain becomes a dam wall that drowns a world while being celebrated by tourists; a multimillion dollar bridge is made for a giant prawn farm that only ever existed as a proposal; an illegal granite mine swiftly abandoned, leaves behind a mirror of our world that is never held to account; small scale gravel pits persistently turn the landscape inside out, like obscured cigarette burns on a tortured body; the great promise of a food bowl is now filled with inedible products like cotton and sandalwood; and the unending maintenance of it all. Of our lives, and our homes, on someone else’s land. Artists Alana Hunt 1/0

Ghost Citizens Witnessing the Intervention Ghost Citizens: Witnessing the Intervention is about the removal of citizen rights by the Federal Government Intervention in the Northern Territory (2007 to 2012) seen through the practices of Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists. Ghost Citizens looks at the return to protectionist policy and the willful diminishing of an Indigenous participatory voice – the loss of citizenship rights; of the right to homelands; and self-determination. 1/0

Yèqŭ Artist talk: 11am, Saturday 15 November 2014 Darwin-based photographer Fiona Morrison’s solo exhibition yèqǔ continues her interest in the nocturnal, or more precisely ‘the shift in reality that accompanies nightfall’. Often set in suburbia or suburban hinterlands, Morrison’s night-time vignettes are generally devoid of people even in a densely populated city such as Beijing, China, where the images for this current series were shot. ‘The lack of physical human presence’, writes Morrison, ‘invokes a memory and/or a trace of people who are invisible and forgotten’. Morrison’s photographs also function as a record of and aesthetic response to local architecture as well as the idea and affect of ‘locale’. 1/0