Is that all there is to see?

That’s pretty much how I felt upon emerging from the seven salles of this 5th National Indigenous Triennial at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) – some dedicated to a single artist – wondering whether this was an adequate reflection of “The past, present and future of Blak Excellence”, as promised by curator Tony Albert. He also promised, “Some of the country’s most important First Nations artists – from Albert Namatjira to Aretha Brown and Dylan Mooney – have been brought together for the fifth National Indigenous Art Triennial at the National Gallery of Australia”.

Are Aretha Brown and Dylan Mooney really at the apex of contemporary First Nations art? I contrast with some of the names selected for last year’s NATSIA Awards, such as Alec Baker, Daniel Walbidi, Big Telstra winner Gaypalani Wanambi, the Ken Sisters, Jimmy Tchooga, Naomi Hobson, Ned Grant (and fellow Spinifex artist Noli Rictor on the catalogue cover), Owen Yalandja and Pedro Waneaamirri. Both Brown and Mooney are young, and may be the future. But is that what the NGA’s Triennials should be about? Again, I compare with the first of them – 2007’s list of 30 Cultural Warriors, all established names at the peak of their art.

That Triennial admittedly was celebrating Warriors from the past – including Arthur Koo-ekka Pambegan, the elder from Cape York who did so much to introduce the South to the Wik-Mungkan Kalben-aw, the Flying Fox Story. It obviously resonated with Tony Albert, who has gone on to work curatorially several times with Arthur’s son Alair – who gets prime position in the 5th Triennial. It’s a brilliant room that really opens eyes and minds to the powerful law-enforcement story via a whirring mass of flying tri-colour totemic batons representing the fruitbats.

What a strong opening, almost immediately dampened by the next room’s flotilla of laying-out trolleys, darkened to allow overhead projectors to impose Kamilaroi tree-carving patterns on black and white images of country. Perhaps artist Warraba Weatherall intended to bring us down? But did he really want so many punters to walk straight through his creation, missing his intended linkage between environmental destruction and cultural genocide?

Perhaps the temptations of the adjacent Namatjira room, full of colour, light and sound were too great. All of Tony Albert’s core concepts greeted us here with the art of the Hermannsberg School stretching from Albert himself through the generations of water-colourists and potters to great-grandson Vincent, who actually rejected the Hermannsberg model to invent his own satirical portraiture style set against Albert’s landscapes. And we’d been greeted by Vincent imaging all of his fellow Triennial artists at the beginning – though, should it have been at the end when we had a relationship with each of them. At the heart of the room is a partial model of Albert’s own house outside Hermannsberg, recreated in stained glass to remind us of the Lutheran origins of that community. And the sounds of its hymns sung in Aranda rise from a delightful film telling the story of the Women’s Choirs that have taken their deserts to the world over the years almost as consequently as Namatjira himself.

BTW, Tony Albert’s curatorial history sneaks in here too – he’s worked with Iltja Ntjarra artists in the past to encourage political squibs to pop up in their landscapes.

From this room of the past, present and future, we progress to Dylan Mooney’s big, gentle gay banners, showing First Nations love being blessed by nature – blossoms, butterflies and lorikeets all show their sweet support.

Nature is a lot rawer next door as Jimmy John Thaiday’s rugged face on film challenges us to take care over the causes of climate change to save his remote Erub Island in the Torres Strait from inundation. He sits on a tiny sandbank, the waves washing in and over; he struggles against the wrapping of a ghost net discarded by international fishermen; he cuddles his baby while sped-up shell movements remind us how little time is left for that generation’s survival on Erub.

From that urgency to the deep time encompassed by Naminapu Maymaru-White – a fellow artist with Albert at Sullivan & Strumpf Gallery – through her Milky Way works. Forty-three starry barks cover one wall, but the curatorial hit is a ceiling panel showing the myth-stories that Yolŋu see in the stars as they lie down at night on the earth. Beneath it, cushions allow visitors to recreate the Yolŋu experience. Intriguingly, the objects all come from an early, more traditional bark by Maymaru-White that reveals her pre-commercial past deep in her Manggalili clan mythos, imbibing her miny’tji from uncle Narritjin Maymaru. Why did she update her painting style, I wonder?

Finally, we come to the room where the Triennial’s title, After the Rain seems to take shape. For Grace Kemarre Robinya actually paints rainfall, plus clouds and its effect on Country, over an11 canvas work that may explain everything. The shape-makers of Yerreynty Arltere Artists seem to confirm that with their mighty blanket-work, Old Woman/Ulkumanu, who appears to be something of a rain-bringer. Seemingly unrelated, Thea Anamara Perkins, from a different artworld, adds the cross-generational thing through tidy portraits of her illustrious family.

But of course, Tony Albert had more meaning in his title. And it peeps out in the preliminary/final wallwork (it’s not quite clear) by that “important First Nations artist”, Melbourne’s 25 year old Aretha Brown. For her ‘True History’ of colonial Australia, over some 40 metres, ends with a clear reference to the failed Voice referendum. While most artists seem to take ‘After the Rain’ to be a meteorological factor in the catalogue, I’m pretty sure that political slap in the face for First Nations Australians was the Rain that Albert wants to put behind him. Mind you, Brown thought it was only a “Blak Voice”.

An addendum: as you emerge from the Old Woman room thinking, “Is that all?”, you enter what appears to be the exhibition shop. It’s not. Nothing is for sale here. But Brisbane’s Blaklash has gathered First Nations ‘lifestyle’ design together from furniture to paintings and books, from Breville toasters to Ramingining sunmats. Slightly odd, and easily bypassed, especially as no creators seem to be credited.

But back to my opening question. I’m now asking whether my critical memories do really add up to something. Perhaps ‘After the Rain’ was a challenge that never went too far from Tony Albert’s comfort zone – no art from the West, for instance – but did still have the potential to leave its mark? An attempt to tell a story of past, present and future in First Nations art that may not have actually involved the most important First Nations artists around, but still engaged this viewer’s mind.

May it engage yours as it tours over the next three years.

Artists from Hermannsburg Potters and Iltja Ntjarra Art Centre at Albert Namatjira’s House, Ntaria/Hermannsburg