Spring is springing and the First Nations art fairs that operate in the wintery north – Darwin and Cairns – are now replaced by Tarnanthi in Adelaide and the SOUTHEAST Aboriginal Art Market at Carriageworks in Sydney.

Opening tonight at 5pm Adelaide time, the annual Tarnanthi Art Fair is 100% online in 2022. Browse and buy wherever you are around the world. Discover paintings, ceramics, sculpture, woven objects, jewellery, textiles, clothes and homewares, created by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists from 55 art centres across the country.

They range from Anindilyakwa Arts on the remote Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria to Yinjaa-Barni in Roebourne, WA. Anindilyakwa offers something that’s surely a first – a Bush Tie-Dyed Baby Onesie for your trendy, recent offspring. En route, you can take in Balgo (subject of John Carty’s brilliant book reviewed this week, where a third generation of artists is getting its moment in the sun with names such as Angie Topsy Tchooga, Stephanie Yukenbarri and Serena James; the high profile Buku Larrnggay Art Centre from Yolngu Yirrkala, where a lovely linocut by Bulthirrirri Wunuŋmurra can be had for as little as $285; the southernmost art centre at Mt Eliza, Victoria – Baluk – offering 77 artworks and pieces of jewellery; Pornpurraaw. Cape York’s home of the ghost net kinds; and the newish art centre from that most familiar of art names, Utopia, where the familiar styles of the late great Emily Kngwarreye and Ada Petyarre re-appear in the hands of young and hopeful artists like Judy Kngwarreye Greeny.

You can also join in creative workshops, hear from artists and learn about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art and culture through the Tarnanthi Art Fair’s program of online events.

Thanks to the Art Gallery of SA and generous BHP sponsorship, every dollar from your purchases goes directly to the artists and their Aboriginal-owned and governed art centres – delivering economic benefits to communities where art production is a vital source of income.

The Tarnanthi Fair opens today at 5pm & closes 9pm Monday17th October

Meanwhile, you’ll have to wait another month in Sydney for the third iteration of the SOUTHEAST Aboriginal Arts Market, which returns to Carriageworks as a live, in-person market, held on Gadigal land from 19-20 November. Organised by ex-AGNSW curator Hetti Perkins and Wiradjuri artist Jonathan Jones, SOUTHEAST celebrates the cultural inheritance and contemporary artistic expression of Aboriginal artists and practitioners living in the southeast region of Australia.

This year, the market brings together 30 independent Aboriginal artists, with hundreds of artworks for sale across ceramics, jewellery, weaving, carving, textiles, painting and prints. 100% of proceeds go back to the artists.