Official exhibition openings:
TREVOR NICKOLLS: Sunday 7 March at 2pm Brenda L Croft, Lecturer Indigenous Art, Culture and Design, University of South Australia will open the Trevor Nickolls exhibition with the artist also present
During 2010, the artist Trevor Nickolls will have several exhibitions dedicated to him beginning in March with an exhibition of recent works presented by AIARTS – Australian and International ARTS - at 179 Sturt Street (at Kintolai Gallery). The works include paintings, drawings and prints with some paintings that were in the recent (till February) Clemenger Prize Exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria.
Dubbed the “father of urban Aboriginal art”, Trevor Nickolls has inspired and influenced a number of other artists. He and Rover Thomas represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1990, the first Indigenous artists to do so.
Since the 1970’s Trevor Nickolls has created art that is unique in style, incorporating some stylistic elements of traditional Aboriginal art such as dot painting and rarrk, in combination with imagery from diverse sources like comic books and the works of masters in the history of art. The resulting works contain sometimes complex iconography with multiple layers of meaning and sometimes combining tragedy with a wicked sense of humour.
A major theme for Trevor Nickolls’ work is Dreamtime to Machinetime, a theme which articulates cultural transition from the traditional Aboriginal cultural heritage of the Dreamtime into the world of mechanisation and technology. The work presents interactions between these two different worlds and shows the dilemma of living in both.
The paintings in the exhibition at AIARTS include Self portrait with Alice and the Tin Man – inspired by his recent trip to Alice Springs. It combines a dual self portrait within an Australian landscape. Other new work includes: Uluru and Hippy Picnic. Works from the Clemenger include: Kiss of Creation, First Contact, Brush with the Lore (also meaning “law”).
Self portrait with Alice and the Tin Man 2010
The painting called the Kiss of Creation is about the kiss that is the beginning of the creation process - whether it is for the creation of a human being or other being in nature. At the top of the painting lies the milky way, a significant Aboriginal origin concept connected to the birth of creation. The animism in the painting shows trees with hands reaching out with elements that are human as well as spiritual.
Kiss of Creation 2009
I fought the lore is a complex painting about history, religion, the past and the present - in an everyday Australian setting. It is about several laws; ie nature’s law, Aboriginal law and the current Australian law. The central element is the boab tree which contains an Aboriginal man behind bars. (Boab trees were in the past used as prisons for Aboriginal people in the Kimberly.)
Brush with the Lore 2009
Trevor Nickolls is featured in all the major State Galleries in Australia and the National Gallery as well as corporate and private collections; while overseas a number of his works are in museums and collections in Europe, Canada and the US. Trevor Nickolls is a SA artist whose first tertiary education was the SA School of Art, then in Stanley Street North Adelaide.
Later in the year, in November to December, the Samstag Museum will present Trevor Nickolls’ survey exhibition titled Other Side Art: Trevor Nickolls, a survey of paintings and drawings 1972-2007, an exhibition that is currently touring around Australia.
During that exhibition, a smaller exhibition called Look both ways; Dreamtime to Machinetime will be on from 24 November to 10 December at the Kerry Packer Gallery (in the same building as the Samstag Museum), supported by the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre. It will include a selection of Trevor Nickolls’ works with several discussion forums on themes and contexts in Aboriginal art and an artist talk.
Burmese Painting
BURMESE PAINTING: Sunday 28 February at 2pm
In the second gallery space at 179 Sturt Street Adelaide, AIARTS presents an exhibition of fine paintings from Burma, inspired by images painted on the temple walls of the old city of Bagan which contains hundreds of Buddhist temples. The paintings, on cloth and canvas are of plants, birds, biomorphic creatures as well as Buddhist imagery.
Profits from the sale of these paintings will go to people affected by the earthquake in Burma. A talk about these paintings will be given at the opening on Sunday 28th February at 2pm.
Kyaw Myint Win Two peacocks
