A Lightness of Spirit is the Measure of Happiness

PETER WAPLES-CROWE
Born 1965 Sydney
Ngarigo
Lives and works in Melbourne

Ngarigo Queen – Cloak of queer visibility 2018
possum pelts, waxed linen thread, leather dyes, pokerwork
380.0 x 129.0 cm
installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne. Cloak-making advisor: Maree Clarke. Courtesy the artist. Photograph: Andrew Curtis

Peter Waples-Crowe is a Ngarigo visual and performance-based artist living in Melbourne. His intersecting experiences as an Aboriginal queer man and his work with community health and arts organisations give him a unique perspective as an artist and community cultural development worker. Waples-Crowe creates bold colourful work that explores the representation of Aboriginal people in popular culture, often referencing the dingo as a totemic figure and an analogy for Indigenous peoples.

Ngarigo Queen – Cloak of queer visibility 2018 is a culturally-specific statement about identity and standing up for yourself and your Mob in the face of cultural erasure. Waples-Crowe explores his emerging role as a queer Elder in the Aboriginal community. Bringing queer activism to the forefront, Waples-Crowe has created a lasting cultural artefact in the form of a possum skin cloak. The fur side of the cloak is adorned with a crucifix, speaking to the erasure of queer histories in Aboriginal culture due to the strict religious heterosexual gaze of colonisation. Creating his own cloak, Waples-Crowe honours the artists of the South East who bought this practice back into our everyday lives.

As the artist explains: ‘The underside of the cloak is kept close to my body; it is the symbol of the Queer Community, the rainbow flag. The flag is etched with shield designs from the South-East and speaks of Aboriginal inclusion in the broader rainbow community; it speaks to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQ+ Mob to stay strong and deadly. Our past might have been erased but our future is here and now and very visible, and we belong in the culture’.

The artist acknowledges the following people in the making of the cloak: Maree Clarke, Kylie Clarke, Ebony Clarke, Megan Evans, Shannon Faulkhead, Karen Adams, Vincent Li, Chris Keeler, Ebony Hickey, Hannah Presley and Nerissa Broben and family.

LISA WAUP
Born 1971 Melbourne
Gunditjmara, Torres Strait Islands
Lives and works in Melbourne

Ancestors 2018 (detail)
2 cloaked figures: feathers, ceramic, glaze, digital print on cotton rag, cotton, coper wire, bird’s feet and metal stands
41.0 x 28.0 x 50.0 cm (each)
2 winged figures: feathers, ceramic, glaze, oaten hay, fibre, bird’s wings, wool, cotton
30.0 x 30.0 x 20.0 cm (each)

Family 2018 (detail)
5 figures: feathers, ceramic, glaze, forged recycled copper water heater, copper patina, copper wire, fibre, 20.0 x 13.0 x 13.0 cm (each)

installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne. Courtesy the artist. Photograph: Andrew Curtis 

Technical support: Blueprint Sculpture, West Melbourne and erinswindow Studio

Lisa Waup combines traditional art forms and methods with a contemporary practice to create distinctively original weavings, sculptural objects and works on paper. Waup uses an abundance of materials to construct her work, incorporating found objects such as feathers, seeds and grasses from her local environment and places she travels.

Waup’s new body of work is a collection of whimsical figures that represent family and ancestors. One 2018 talks about the duality required of Aboriginal people in Australian society, having your identity questioned and the ignorance we must endure about our cultural connections. The two faces of the rotating doll flips between smiling faces. Both figures are expressions of light and happiness, conjuring the strength to be joyful no matter what position they rest in. The accompanying group of Ancestors 2018 stand tall and grounded. They are dressed in paper cloaks etched with protective shield designs and documentation of family history, connecting Waup to the story of her ancestry, as figures of strength and resilience.

The five figures in Family 2018 represent the complexity of Waup’s extended family: ‘Family is everything to me, it has always been the epitome of happiness. The connectivity, love and strength it brings has shaped me into who I am today; the bonds that hold us in place during times of turbulence to ground and secure us flow with us when we search for something more – with a place in our family we become whole.’

VICKI COUZENS
Born 1960 Warrnambool, Victoria
Keerray Woorroong/Gunditjmara
Lives and works in Geelong, Victoria

Djawannacuppatea 2018
plywood, kitchen table and chairs, lamp, woven woollen matt, woven framed photographs, anodised aluminium teapot, personal collections, sound
443.5 x 840.0 x 505.0 cm,
installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
Sound: Robbie Bundle. Courtesy the artist. Photograph: Andrew Curtis

Vicki Couzens is a member of the Keerray Woorrong and Gunditjmara clans of the Western Districts of Victoria. Her diverse practice is centred around Country, language and identity and the reclamation of cultural practices, placing importance on reciprocal knowledge. Djawannacuppatea 2018 is designed to promote Vicki’s self-determined, key focus in creating ‘living legacy’ through the transference of cultural knowledge and practice to and within her family across generations.

Having a ‘cuppa’ tea is a common Aboriginal way of catching up and sharing among family and community. When we meet up with mob, whether it’s visiting each other’s home or out in community, we greet each other, we check in, we ask how is the family?, and so on, then its cuppa tea time. ‘Hey Sis/Bruz, Aunt/Unc/Mum/Dad/Nan/Pop/Cuz … how ya goin?’ djwanna cuppa tea? I’ll put the kettle on...’

From the post-colonial times on reserves and missions through to present days, we are still having a cuppa tea. We sit down at the kitchen table, in the lounge, or round the campfire with the billy tea and we yarn. We share stories: of happy times, hard times, celebrations, family, funny stories, sad times and sorry business.

For the installation Djawannacuppatea, Vicki has invited her family to contribute to the work by creating their own ‘cuppa tea stories’. Over the course of the exhibition, the table installation will be developed in collaboration with Aunty Fay Muir, Lisa Couzens and Gina Bundle, to explore memories of Country, family, geneaology, gathering around the table, and the continuation of cultural traditions. Other contributors include Bronwyn Razem, Jarrah Bundle, Yaraan Bundle, Marlee Bundle, Niyoka Bundle, Kirrae Bundle and nieces Kelsey Love and Tarryn Love.

YHONNIE SCARCE
Born 1973 Woomera, South Australia
Kokatha, Nunuku
Lives and works in Melbourne and Adelaide

from the series Remember Royalty 2018

Granny Melba 2018
water based ink screen printed on vintage French linen, black lustre blown glass
300.0 x 191.0 cm

Fanny – Andamooka opal fields, South Australia 2018
water based ink screen printed on vintage cotton sheet, vintage suitcase, black lustre blown glass, vintage gloves, embroidered handkerchiefs
sheet: 260.0 x 230.0 cm
suitcase with objects: 62.0 x 47.0 x 50.0 cm

Papa Willy 2018
water based ink screen printed on woollen blanket, black lustre blown glass, tool box, metal hand tools
blanket: 235.0 x 202.0 cm
toolbox with objects: 41.0 x 50.0 x 27.0 cm

Family portrait – Koonibba Mission, South Australia 2018
water based ink screen printed on vintage cotton sheet, vintage metal trunk, black lustre blown glass
sheet: 258.0 x 165.0 cm
trunk with objects: 33.0 x 72.0 x 54.0 cm

installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
Print production: Spacecraft, Collingwood
Courtesy the artist and This is No Fantasy + Dianne Tanzer Gallery, Melbourne
Photograph: Andrew Curtis

Yhonnie Scarce’s practice explores the political nature and aesthetic qualities of glass, referencing the history of nuclear testing on her family’s homelands, and illuminating the ongoing effects of colonisation on Aboriginal people. Family history is central to Scarce’s work, drawing on the strength of her ancestors, she offers herself as a conduit, sharing their significant stories from the past. Scarce often recreates bush tucker in the form of yams, bush bananas and plums that are prevalent on her Country, their delicate shapes metaphorically representing her family and her abiding connection to the land.

Scarce’s new commission, Remember Royalty 2018 honours generations of her ancestors in a work reminiscent of a shrine or monument. Large scale banners are suspended in space like religious pennants, adorned with historical photographs that have been meticulously transferred onto fabrics relating to each family member. Alongside each portrait, which are drawn from family archives, are intricate hand-crafted gifts created in glass by Scarce to honour her ancestors. Scarce says of her new work: ‘As far as I am concerned my grandparents, great grandparents and those people who walked my Country before me, are Australia’s royalty’.

VINCENT NAMATJIRA
Born 1983 Alice Springs, Northern Territory
Western Arrernte
Lives and works in Indulkana, APY Lands, South Australia

Welcome to Indulkana 2018
synthetic polymer paint on linen
122.0 x 304.0 cm
installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
Courtesy the artist, Iwantja Arts, Indulkana and This is No Fantasy + Dianne Tanzer Gallery, Melbourne
Photograph: Andrew Curtis 

Vincent Namatjira is a Western Arrernte artist and the great grandson of eminent artist Albert Namatjira and it was his familial connection with the master watercolourist that encouraged him to take up painting. Namatjira’s paintings are bold and expressive works that often incorporate self-portraiture and clever combinations of historical and current day politics. Namatjira draws on humour and the unexpected to tell his stories, often placing his subjects in unusual and quirky environments that add personality to the scenes.

Welcome to Indulkana 2018 brings together all the elements that make Namatjira’s work so relevant in our modern times. Namatjira has painted two of the most influential and controversial political figures in the world visiting his remote desert community of Indulkana, and in doing so he has shifted their power in an unexpected way. With a cheeky nod to his great grandfather, he has positioned himself in Albert’s famous green ute and placed himself centrally in the painting, ensuring all four of the men are now on the same level. Namatjira’s work shows an awareness of the disconnection that exists in the everyday lives of Aboriginal communities and the high-level decisions made on their behalf. Holding the aboriginal flag aloft, he places his community and culture at the centre of the world, as tensions between Trump and Putin play out in the wings, subtly subverting authority in a retelling of history with a mischievous twist.

PETER MUNGKURI
Born 1946 Fregon, South Australia
Yankunytjatjara
Lives and works Indulkana, APY Lands, South Australia

ALEC BAKER
Born 1932 Shirley Well, South Australia
Pitjatjantjara, Yankunytjatjara
Lives and works Indulkana, APY Lands, South Australia

MR KUNMANARA POMPEY
Born 1952, Gap Well, South Australia; Deceased 2018 Port Augusta, South Australia
Yankunytjatjara
Lived and worked Indulkana, APY Lands, South Australia

Never stop riding 2017 (video still)
HD video
10:26 mins
Producer: Iwantja Arts, Indulkana
Camera and editing: Jackson Lee, Melted Creative
This project was made possible by funding from The Australia Council and Indigenous Visual Arts Industry Support. Special thanks to Welbourn Hill Station and Teena and George Rosewarne
Courtesy Iwantja Arts, Indulkana

Peter Mungkuri, Alec Baker and Mr Kunmanara Pompey are senior artists and respected leaders from the APY Lands community of Indulkana. In the 1940s through to the 1960s, these young men were renowned stockmen working on the land and living the stockman’s life. This significant time in their lives was spent working with horses and mustering cattle. Though this was a hard time in their lives, they look back on it fondly and with much pride.

In 2017, the group led a men’s camp at nearby cattle station Welbourn Hill, funded by the Australia Council. At the camp, the men came together to talk about everyday life and to tell stories around the fire to a soundtrack of Country and Western music. Meanwhile, guided by Peter, Alec and Mr Kunmanara Pompey, the young men from Indulkana created the special short film Never stop riding.

Never stop riding is an Indulkana Spaghetti Western shot at Welbourn Hill station, at Indulkana and the surrounding homelands. The film is a celebration of affinity with country music and the cowboy lifestyle. The artists have created the film as a reminder to Indigenous men and boys across Australia, that whatever their passion in life is, whatever struggles they may be facing, that above all else, they should Never stop riding!

Peter Mungkuri and Alec Baker would like to dedicate this film to the memory of their late friend and colleague, Mr Kunmanara Pompey.

TIGER YALTANGKI
Born 1973 Indulkana, South Australia
Yankunytjatjara
Lives and works in Indulkana, APY Lands, South Australia

TIGERLAND 2018
synthetic polymer paint on linen and plywood cut-outs
installation: 200.0 x 1200.0 x 240.0 cm
installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne.
Courtesy the artist and Iwantja Arts, Indulkana and Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne.
Photograph: Andrew Curtis 

Tiger Yaltangki’s paintings are a bold and bright blending of the Mamu, a naughty supernatural spirit, depictions of Malpa Wiru (good friends) and a collection of film and music icons from pop-culture. There is a playfulness in Yaltangki’s paintings that is suggestive of a carefree imagination and his characters have a sense of lightness and happiness with a rock ‘n’ roll edge.

TIGERLAND 2018 is a lively assemblage of cheeky and wonderfully vivid faces and guitars suspended in front of an elaborately illustrated mural-scale canvas. This impressive installation offers us real insight into Tiger Yaltangki’s everyday life, the things that inspire him and how he sees the world. His inspiration is drawn from a love of sci-fi movies and TV series such as The Mighty Boosh and Dr Who, layered with his favourite musical references. The energetic background composition of faces and figures set within an abstract landscape reflects a dynamic sense of familial, communal and spiritual connectedness within the Indulkana community.

MR KUNMANARA POMPEY
Born 1952 Gap Well, South Australia; Deceased 2018 Port Augusta, South Australia
Yankunytjatjara
Lived and worked Indulkana, APY Lands, South Australia

Cowboy story 2018
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
41.5 x 71.0 cm

Cowboy story 2018
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
41.5 x 71.0 cm, installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne.
Courtesy the artist’s estate and Iwantja Arts, Indulkana
Photograph: Andrew Curtis

Mr Kunmanara Pompey was a senior Yankunytjatjara man from Indulkana whose paintings represent joyful, painterly depictions of his life and memories of youth spent as a hard-working stockman, and later as a travelling country musician with his wife. His final works titled Cowboy story are a reminder of the good old days and a beautiful homage to his late wife.

Of these final works, Mr Kunmanara Pompey said: ‘Me and my brother Buddy grew up riding horses, we were stockmen for a long time. I taught myself how to play the country music and gospel music; I like playing just like Slim Dusty and Hank Williams. When I’m painting, I think about when I was playing that country music when I was a cowboy a long time ago. I was teaching myself these things, and now I have all of the memories, the paintings are how I remember the country’.

KAYLENE WHISKEY
Born 1976 Indulkana, South Australia
Yankunytjatjara
Lives and works in Indulkana, APY Lands, South Australia

Seven Sistas 2018 (detail)
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
8 panels: 307.0 x 124.0 cm (each)
installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne.
Courtesy the artist, Iwantja Arts, Indulkana, and blackartprojects, Melbourne.
Photograph: Andrew Curtis 

Kaylene Whiskey paints colourful and joyful portraits of the famous music and film stars she admires, telling stories of her family, friends and Country. Her work is a celebration of strong women in pop-culture and the lines happily blur between her own life and theirs.

Seven Sistas 2018 illustrates the story of Kungkarangulpa, the Seven Sisters or Pleiades constellation. Aboriginal Nations across the country have variations on this creation story, which talks of the bad Wati Nyiru (man) that chases the seven sisters with the aim of making them his wives. The sisters keep running and escape, ending up in the sky, creating the well-known constellation. For Kaylene, this is a familiar story that she has reimagined for us with each sister represented as one of her favourite pop culture icons, including Wonder Woman walking her dog, Dolly Parton celebrating Christmas and Cher sharing the mingkulpa (tobacco plant).

ROBERT FIELDING
Born 1969 Lilla Creek, Northern Territory
Western Arrernte, Yankunytjatjara, Pakistani
Lives and works in Mimili, APY Lands, South Australia

Objects of origin 2 2018
C-type print on dibond
110.0 x 165.0 cm

Objects of origin 4 2018
C-type print on dibond
110.0 x 165.0 cm

Objects of origin 3 2018
C-type print on dibond
110.0 x 165.0 cm

Objects of origin 1 2018
C-type print on dibond
110.0 x 165.0 cm

installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne.
Courtesy the artist and Mimili Maku Arts, Mimili Community,
South Australia. Photograph: Andrew Curtis

Robert Fielding is a Western Aranda and Yankunytjatjara artist from Mimili community on the Anangu Pitjatjantjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. Fielding’s artistic practice revolves around the collision of cultures, interpreting the space in between by drawing on his family and community as inspiration. For Fielding, it is important to share the sense of unity and connection he feels for his Country and community, which he does by working across various mediums including photography and film which he has embraced more recently.

Fielding has created a new photographic essay, moving image work and accompanying soundscape which re-contextualises everyday objects, bringing them back to life and acknowledging the interactions people have had with them over time. Alongside this work is an installation of old flour buckets collected from around Indulkana, referring to past generations of his family living on rations of flour, tea, sugar and tobacco. As Fielding explains: ‘The flour bucket is a reminder of past days when these items were first introduced as rations to my ancestors. Since then, they have become part of the Pitjantjatjara/ Yankunytjatjara language and Anangu way of life’.

JONATHAN JONES
Born 1978 Sydney
Wiradjuri, Kamilaroi
Lives and works in Sydney

untitled (gidyirriga) 2018
ceramic figurines, sponge-stamped, synthetic polymer paint, wood, stereo, soundscape
dimensions variable
installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne.
Sound design: Luke Mynott, Sonar Sound; Voices: Karma Dechen, Renna Dechen, Beth Delan, Jenson Howard, Lilia Howard, Taj Lovett, Mincarlie Lovett, Phoebe Smith, Ben Woolstencroft and Mae Woolstencroft from Parkes Public School; with thanks to Dr Uncle Stan Grant Snr AM, Uncle Geoff Anderson and Lionel Lovett. Courtesy the artist
Photograph: Andrew Curtis

Jonathan Jones creates installations that engage with current and historical experiences of place. Jones’ new commission evokes a sense of nostalgia in its celebration of the native parrot, commonly known as the budgie, and in doing so the artist subtly acknowledges a much longer history of connection to Country and the spirit of place, language and intellectual property.

The word ‘budgerigar’, like many Australian words, has been corrupted from an Aboriginal language. In Wiradjuri these birds are called gidyirriga. Although over five million years old, budgies have only recently become domesticated. Since the 1950s they have been intensively bred in captivity and exported around the world. This breeding has seen a variety of mutations, in colour and size. Budgerigars are not only a popular pet but also the subject of a decorative ceramic figurine movement from which Jones has built his collection over many years.

Jones’ personal collection of ceramic budgies is set against a hand-painted wall design using a stamp made from domestic sponges. The design speaks to both murruwaygu, or south-east cultural markings, and patterns seen on crocheted doilies. The design itself is an elongated diamond or gum-leaf. Accompanying the budgerigar figurines and wall painting is a soundscape created in collaboration with children from the rural community of Parkes who are engaged in learning Wiradjuri, their local language. 

BENITA CLEMENTS
Born 1980 Ntaria/Hermannsburg, Northern Territory
Western Arrernte
Lives and works in Alice Springs, Northern Territory

Benita Clements, Fireworks at Alice Springs Show 2018
from the series My life with Albert – my family 2018 
watercolour and gouache on paper
26.5 x 74.0 cm
installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne. Courtesy the artist and Iltja Ntjarra Many Hands Art Centre, Alice Springs, Northern Territory
Photograph: Andrew Curtis

Benita Clements is the daughter of artist Gwenda Namatjira and great granddaughter of Albert Namatjira. Clements continues the family tradition of Ntaria/Hermannsburg watercolour, painting her Country in the vibrant colours reflected in the landscape. Clements work is foremost a celebration of her family and everyday life, documenting trips out bush for hunting and fishing and sharing scenes of the younger Namatjira generations learning the watercolour tradition.

As the artist notes: ‘I like to look at photos of Albert and old-time photos of Ntaria/Hermannsburg to inspire my paintings. I like to think about how they lived in the old times, in the mission, and on our Country – and what my family did. I paint stories of the old-times that my family have told me about painting with Albert in Palm Valley and around the West MacDonnell Ranges, and Alice Springs. I also like to make up stories about what my family might have been doing, and how my family and our country inspires me. I like to paint fun paintings!’