The 2021 Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards
Ngarralja Tommy May, Telstra 2020 Art Award Winner. Photo: Damian Kelly.
Australia’s longest-running and most prestigious Indigenous art award is back in 2021 — providing a much-needed celebration of art in these challenging times.
Words: Emma-Kate Wilson
Sixty-five artists have been nominated from across Australia for this year’s Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, each bringing with them unique concepts and artistic methodologies that connect back to Country.
Finalist, Quandamooka artist Elisa Jane Carmichael invites Country into her art through engaging traditional making and ancestral memory — working with her mother and grandmother on their reed necklaces through the process of cyanotype, eco dyeing and weaving using materials from the saltwater, freshwater and bushland.
Elisa’s artwork Fabric of Place was crafted on Country in Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island), next to the water, collecting mangrove bark collected from the shorelines. The artist shares, ‘my late grandma always said, ‘water is the living springs of Mother Earth’. I am inspired by the ways in which moves, the depths and the constant source of life water provides.’
Emerging artist Kyra Mancktelow is a Quandamooka, Nughi woman of Moorgumpin (Moreton Island) who engages contemporary art-making methods to draw attention to the effects of colonisation in Australia. ‘It’s easy for Australia to look over their history and ignore it; this is why I want to keep telling histories through my perspective, allowing the audience to connect and reflect,’ she reveals.
In her work for Telstra NATSIAA, Moongalba ll, Kyra researched the printmaking technique of the 1896 uniforms the victims of the Myora mission, located on Minjerribah, were forced to wear as assimilation under a strict missionary regime.
‘We still have a very long way to go for justice for First Nations people in this country,’ says Thea Anamara Perkins. Pictured: A Bastard Like Me by the artist. Photo: Courtesy of the artist & N.Smith Gallery..
“Art is a great tool for communicating abstract ideas, and activism is all about bringing issues to light.”
Yunpalara by Nola Yurnangurnu Campbell. Courtesy of the artist and Warakurna Artist.
‘The material I used to create these uniforms is called Tarleton, a printmaking fabric that we use to take away colour from an etching plate,’ Kyra shares. ‘I chose this material because it represents that attempt of Assimilation and taking away identity, culture, traditions. Instead of using this material to take away colour, I rub colour back into the uniforms/material and bring back that sense of strong cultural ways, traditions and knowledge of up-kept by mob.’
Kyra reflects on her position as a 24-year-old who, like many Australians, went their entire schooling without ever hearing these horror stories. Her art uses poetic rendering to reveal the innocence and culture that was stolen.
She reminds us, ‘Moongalba ll is there for people to look and reflect upon. My hope is when they go home, they do more research about this topic as it Is not my job to force an education on the viewer, but rather let them know that there is a history to be recognised – especially on Minjerribah Country.’
Arrernte and Kalkadoon artist Thea Anamara Perkins also draws on colonisation for her artworks, although hers comes from a socio-politic standpoint that feeds from her family’s personal history. Thea’s NATSIAA entry depicts her grandfather’s autobiography cover painted in her distinctive style. The title reads, ‘A Bastard Like Me’ in yellow, with ‘Charles Perkins’ across the top of the artwork in red.
The title ‘A Bastard Like Me’ is to take the idea of being vilified, or without claim — and to then turn that on its head — to use it self-referentially as the powerful assertion of the underdog,’ says Thea. ‘It’s a great combination of text and image that hums with the radical spirit of the time and the bold 70s graphic.’
These artworks, and the entire awards, serve as essential messaging connecting Australians through history and place. As Elisa Jane Carmichael reminds us, ‘Our Country is alive. Always was, always will be.’
“What I wish for the audience to experience when visualising my work is that there is a history here in Australia that does not seem to be told through our educational systems. ”
‘My work Fabric of Place honours Country through place, story and the materials used to weave this work together. Country has created the textiles which are woven together using ungaire, our freshwater swamp reed and traditional weaving fibre,’ says Elisa Jane Carmichael. Courtesy of the artist and Onespace Gallery.