The new art gallery at Charles Darwin University will open this week with an exhibition of Tiwi Island art.

NT Administrator Tom Pauling will open the new Art Gallery at Charles Darwin University.

The gallery’s first’s exhibition, Jilamara: Looking back, looking forward in our art, will feature work from the Tiwi Islands.

CDU Art Gallery curator Anita Angel said it was a great honour to attract such high quality work for the first exhibition.

“The Tiwi Design Collection was created to be seen,” Ms Angel said.

“Given its history and mission, it is only fitting that its first curated exhibition takes place in a university art gallery.”

The exhibition has attracted one of the most senior and renowned artists on the Tiwi Islands, Jean Baptiste Apuatimi, and the first Tiwi woman to hold a solo exhibition, Maria Josette Orsto.

“Tiwi Design is one of the oldest and artistically diverse Aboriginal art centres in Australia,” Ms Angel said.

“It is both a pleasure and a privilege that the official opening of the Collection’s new Gallery coincides with this exhibition, opened by Tiwi Design artists.”