Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Paddington is currently hosting new installation works by Indigenous-Australian artist Jonathan Jones. Untitled (The Tyranny of Distance), 2008 is positioned within the main exhibition space and is composed of a series of six blue tarpaulin covered walls, each extending to over eight meters in length. Each of them radiate with light from fluorescent tubes positioned to make arrow like chevron patterns. The audience is not allowed access between the walls, and are instead allowed only to move around the perimeter of the installation. This makes reference to the Australian government’s 2006 intervention of the Northern Territory’s Aboriginal community, raising issues of land ownership and civil rights. Positioned outside the gallery space is Jones’ installation Genesis, 2008. Comprising of a series of stacked emu eggs illuminated by florescent light, this work also makes reference to indigenous issues as a symbol of traditional art and new life.
Jones is of the Kamilaroi/Wiradjuri people of South Eastern Australia. He has worked as a curator for Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative; the only Aboriginal owned and operated contemporary art space in Sydney. He has received numerous awards for his art practice including the 2002 New South Wales Indigenous Artists Fellowship and the 2006 Xstrata Emerging Indigenous Art Award. He currently lives and works in Sydney, while acting as a museum educator at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
