The Western Australian Indigenous Art Awards exhibition will be on display at the Art Gallery of Western Australia from Saturday, July 31, ’til Monday, January 3, 2011; from 10am-5pm daily, Wednesday to Monday.
With categories including sculpture, video, painting and photography it seems quite possible that The Western Australian Indigenous Art Awards could well change the perceptions of many regarding what Indigenous art is and can be.
Changing people’s perception of Indigenous culture and art is a very challenging task, says exhibition curator, Glenn Pilkington, however exhibitions like the Awards exhibition are core to shifting people’s understandings.
Often people feel that Indigenous art has to be a custodial painting, created through the application of layered paint in the form of dots. And yes, work such as this from desert areas of Australia makes up a significant part of the industry; however, Indigenous culture is active and alive, not static. People’s understanding of what kind of work is being created by Indigenous artists needs to shift, and be inclusive of new ways of working that include photography, installation and video.
Indigenous people are as diverse as any culture of people, and our ways of investigating, exploring and depicting the many things that inspire or concern us are equally diverse.
