Weeping figures commemorate 2022 flooding in the Clarence Valley

 

 

PICTURED: Nationally recognised local artist Al Stark painted four sentinels overlooking the Clarence River on the pylons under the new Harwood Bridge adjacent to Yamba Road. 

Photos by Clarence Valley Council, August 2023

Tweet of the Week

 

From the 'Shared Sky' exhibition, 'Jupiter and Ten Moons' by Indigenous Australian artist Barbara Merritt #WomensArt pic.twitter.com/cbW6yGYBcm

— #WOMENSART (@womensart1) December 29, 2022

 

A reminder of why "Enshrining A First Nations Voice In The Australian Constitution" is important

 

Why is the Uluru Statement from the Heart and, what it asks of all Australia, so important?

It is a matter of historical record and of a continuous culture enduring from time immemorial on this continent down to the present day. A matter of connection with and care of Country — an understanding of responsibility towards and belonging to a place which has existed since long before the British-European notion of sovereignty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8sYLZk5QeM

KIMBERLEY ROCK ART: A World Treasure. 2020. Kimberley rock art is one the largest figurative bodies of art to survive anywhere on the planet.... and yet so little is known about it. The Kimberley Foundation Australia is about to change that. The Foundation is sponsoring a world-class team of scientists to date the rock art.

IMAGE: The Blackfulla Perspective (2018)
@theblackfullaperspective2186
Click on image to enlarge

The languages of Aboriginal Australia
Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
(1994)
Click on image to enlarge

In Australia today est. 812,000 people formally identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. This figure is believed to probably be an undercount of the Indigenous population, in part due to the voluntary nature of the question in the national census and the difficulty in census teams visiting some parts of the country due to the physical remoteness of some Aboriginal communities.

A national referendum is expected to take place sometime in the 2023-24 financial year asking all citizens registered to vote to express their view on including a new provision in the Australian Constitution which establishes a First Nations Voice. 

Sydney-based Dunghutti artist Blak Douglas wins 2022 Archibald Prize with portrait of Wiradjuri artist Karla Dickens standing "knee-deep in floodwater in her hometown of Lismore flanked by foreboding rain clouds, one for each day the rain fell and drowned the Northern Rivers"

The Sydney Morning Herald, 13 May 2022:

Sydney-based Dunghutti artist Blak Douglas painted 14 dark, flat-bottomed clouds hovering around the fierce face of Karla Dickens for this year’s Archibald Prize-winning portrait. A signature element of his art, he normally draws his clouds “white and fluffy, just like our governments”.

But for Moby Dickens, Dickens is portrayed knee-deep in floodwater in her hometown of Lismore flanked by foreboding rain clouds, one for each day the rain fell and drowned the Northern Rivers.

Archibald Prize 2022 winner, Blak Douglas ‘Moby Dickens’.
CREDIT: BLAK DOUGLAS

In its 101 years, the Archibald Prize has regularly managed to capture the zeitgeist but with Moby Dickens Douglas has painted one of the most politically charged portraits in recent memory. Highly recommended was Jude Rae for her portrait of scientist, engineer and inventor Dr Saul Griffith who argues rapid electrification is Australia’s path to net-zero.

In the midst of an election campaign, both paintings carry powerful messages to politicians to act on climate change. More explicitly, Douglas says his portrait of his dear friend stands as a call to vote out the Morrison government.

“This painting stands to represent the irony that under the Coalition government the arts is continually kicked in the guts,” Douglas told this masthead. “Here we’ve got the winner of the greatest prize on the continent, which gets all the adulation and media attention, speaking about the importance of global warming and climate change – to a government that consistently kicked us in the guts by sapping arts funding to pump it back to opening new coalmines. This painting is extremely significant in that sense.”…..