Image credit: Jenna LEE (Gulumerridjin (Larrakia), Wardaman and KarraJarri) doedoet to tie up 1–6, 2021 recycled 925 silver, red kumihimo silk cord. Collection of the Artist. Image courtesy of the artist.
Reflecting on the 2023 NAIDOC Week theme, For our Elders, Kingston Arts presents a group exhibition of esteemed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists that encourages conversation between traditional practices and contemporary approaches.
This exhibition is presented as part of NAIDOC Week 2023 and in collaboration with the Kingston Inclusive Communities team.
Artists
Adam Magennis is a Bunurong artist with a professional career in the arts that reached a 28-year milestone in 2023. Adam's studio is based in Shoreham where he produces finished art pieces and operates his art consultancy business. He has regular commissions for public art installations and has created various murals and sculptural works for public asset projects. Adam is the Director of Kaptify Art Services, a Professional Art Consultancy, and Victorian Indigenous Business that is based in Mornington and operates throughout Victoria and in the Kulin Nation region area.
Beverley Meldrum is a Kokatha/Wirangu and Nunga artist, whose multidisciplinary practice includes painting, carving, ceramics and jewellery-making using a wide variety of mediums including ceramics, timber, stone and kelp.
Bayley Mifsud (also known as Merindah-Gunya) is a proud Kirrae and Peek Wurrong woman of the Gundjitmara nation, practicing and sharing her culture through art and storytelling.
Cassie Leatham is from the Daungwurrung and Djadjawurrung people from the Kulin Nation. She is an Indigenous artist, master weaver, traditional dancer, bushtukka woman and educator. She is extremely passionate about teaching her skills to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students of all ages. Her aim is to give participants the opportunity to learn and understand Aboriginal culture and develop knowledge of both historical and contemporary Aboriginal history.
Jenna Lee is a Gulumerridjin (Larrakia), Wardaman and KarraJarri Saltwater woman with mixed Japanese, Chinese, Filipino and Anglo-Australian ancestry. Using art to explore and celebrate her many overlapping identities, Lee works across sculpture, installation, and body adornment. She also works with moving images, photography and projection in the digital medium. With a practice focused on materiality and ancestral material culture, Lee works with notions of the archive, histories of colonial collecting, and settler-colonial books and texts. Lee ritualistically analyses, deconstructs and reconstructs source material, language and books, transforming them into new forms of cultural beauty and pride, and presenting a tangibly translated book. Driven to create work in which she, her family, and the broader mixed First Nations community see themselves represented, Lee builds on a foundation of her father’s teachings of culture and her mother’s teachings of papercraft.
Aunty Katrina Amon is a proud Quandamooka woman from the Noonuccal Tribe and shares the Jandai language. Her totem is the carpet snake, Kabul, and she comes from North Stradbroke Island, known as Minjeribah. Amon's print and painting practice relates to her County, her Mob and the stories told by her Elders. Painting helps her connect to her culture and encourages mindfulness.
Madi Mercer (also known as Ghostgum) is a proud Wadawurrung woman living and creating on Boonwurrung Country, in Naarm. She grew up on Boonwurrung, Wurundjeri, Wiradjuri, Gadigal and Wadawurrung Countries with her family, but has been based in Naarm where she undertook her Graphic Design degree. Her artistic practice stems from her Cultural identity, connection to herself and family, Country and Ancestors. Madi's works aim to highlight the importance of acknowledging and respecting the beauty, history, and Cultural significance of all levels of Blak Country, expressed within both her painted, and woven pieces. Her stylistic elements involve layered, fluid line work, as well as bold colours that are directly inspired by Country, that ground her experiences, and feelings she explores while creating. Madi utilises her artistic practice as a form of therapy, moving through trauma, processing thought patterns, and exploring deep feelings within her work to create physical, tangible representations of her healing and lived experiences.
Dominic White is a Palawa man, descendant of the Trawoolaway, through his birth mother’s family. He is an adopted kid and has been following a process of reclamation of his heritage. White works as a multi-disciplinary artist exploring, connection, observation, responsibility, and obligation in different mediums. White's work tries to understand the cultural, historical human activities and interaction with place and materials. Often the material cultural context informs the work. Trained as a printmaker, White's work spans contemporary printmaking, sculpture, photography, and now jewellery. He is based in Bunnerong /Boonwurung Country, Mornington Peninsula, father of 2 and teach art part-time to support his art making.
opening event & blak market
Friday 23 June, 5pm – 9pm
Free admission
To celebrate the opening of For our Elders visit Kingston Arts Centre to preview the exhibition, meet the artists and purchase some treasures from a Blak Market curated by Derrimut Weelam Gathering Place with all First Nations stallholders sharing an extraordinary range of arts, crafts, cultural objects and more.
A special yidaki performance and traditional Welcome to Country will open the evening.