December 2022
To all of the artists, collaborators, collectors, curators and institutions who have supported Blackartprojects throughout 2022, we thank you and wish you a safe and happy holiday season.
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Robert Fielding will present his new video project Milpatjunanyi as part of The National 4: Australian Art Now. The biennial survey of contemporary art showcases work being made across the country by artists of different generations and cultural backgrounds. The National is a partnership between four of Sydney’s leading cultural institutions, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Carriageworks and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA Australia). The 2023 edition will be curated by Beatrice Gralton at the Art Gallery of NSW; Emily Rolfe at Campbelltown Arts Centre; Freja Carmichael and Aarna Fitzgerald Hanley at Carriageworks; and Jane Devery at the MCA Australia. Further details here
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Amala Groom and Robert Fielding have been selected to take part in the inaugural Bunurong Fieldwork Residency at McClelland. The residency program aims to develop the artists’ skills and capacity in public art, and to deliver major creative outcomes. Groom and Fielding will stay at McClelland’s studio cottage over a period of six to twelve weeks during 2023, developing detailed concept proposals for a permanent site-specific public artwork. Panel judge Tina Baum said the residency is an important two-fold opportunity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists to not only engage with the local Mayone-bulluk clan in Bunurong Country but also to develop their skills and understanding of public arts. Further details here
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Amala Groom has been announced a recipient of the Create NSW Visual Arts Commissioning Program for her work THE THE. The project will support the regional development and production with multiple domestic presentations of THE THE, a new moving image work in Groom's Raised by Wolves series for future presentation at Sydney Contemporary, Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery and Cementa Contemporary Arts Festival.
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Amala Groom has been announced a finalist of the inaugural Mudgee Arts Precinct Portrait Prize for 2022. Further details here
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Amala Groom has been announced a recipient of the 2023 Platform LAB residency. Platform LAB champions the creative development process of artists across diverse disciplines and at all stages of career. This tailored residency program supports participating artists to experiment with new methodologies, undertake research, grow their professional practice and contribute to contemporary dialogues. Further details here
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Amala Groom has been announced a finalist of the Blacktown City Art Prize, a showcase of work from emerging and established artists from Blacktown, western Sydney and across Australia. The exhibition runs 10 January to 17 February 2023 at The Leo Kelly Blacktown Arts Centre. Further details here
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Amala Groom and Tristan Chant have been announced finalists of the 2023 Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Art (NPCA), awarded every two years. The 2023 NPCA exhibition will feature artworks from all the finalists and will be held at the Barn Gallery, Montsalvat from 21 April to 11 June 2023. Further details here
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Tristan Chant has been included in the final exhibition of the year by Res Artis in Glasshouse Street, Collingwood, Victoria. The exhibition celebrates the collection of benefactors Michael Schwarz and David Clouston and closes 23 December.
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Blackartprojects returns in 2023 with projects by David Booth, Ellie Chalmers-Robinson, Tristan Chant, Robert Fielding, Amala Groom, Nicholas Ives, Robbie Rowlands and Beth Thornber.
Image: Amala Groom at Parramatta Artists Studios Rydalmere, 2022 Photo credit: Jacquie Manning
November 2022
Robert Fielding has been included in the 2022 Bangkok Art Biennale, CHAOS : CALM, as part of the Ngura Pulka project, supported by the APY Collective. Over the past three years, senior artists have worked together to create paintings that celebrate their Country and the powerful Tjukurpa that lies within. The biennale runs 22 October 2022 - 23 February 2023. Further details here
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Mia Boe has been included in the second edition of the ground-breaking exhibition Melbourne Now, presented at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia from March 2023. Bold in scope and scale, the exhibition highlights the extraordinary work of more than 200 Victorian-based artists, designers, studios and firms whose practices are shaping the cultural landscape of Melbourne and Victoria. Further details here
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David Booth’s Harri High Pants returns as the lead artwork for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for 2023 program. The smiling icon reached a global audience across banners, posters, signage, festival guides and all digital platforms for the 2022 program. Further details here
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Robert Fielding’s recently acquired photographic series Mayatjara are current on show at the National Portrait Gallery of Australia on Ngunnawal country in Canberra.
Image: Robert Fielding © Meg Hansen and Mimili Maku Arts
October 2022
Robert Fielding has been announced a finalist in the 2022 Bowness Prize. His finalist work Manta miil-miilpa (sacred earth) has a complex and intertwined relationship with the spirit of the land. “My work responds to the natural elements to create an expressive underpainting of colour in a dance between myself and the country upon which I work”. The exhibition runs 29 September - 13 November, 2022 at Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne. Further details here
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Amala Groom has been announced a finalist in the 2022 Paddington Art Prize. Groom notes her work is “an intervention into McCubbin's staged 1886 work 'Lost', demonstrating the practice of self-sovereignty as a rally to the emblematic colonial 'picture of innocence' figure in 'perilous happenstance' to take a second glance at third space salvation.” The exhibition of national finalists runs 27 October - 6 November, 2022. Further details here
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Amala Groom has been announced a finalist in the 2022 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize. The exhibition of runs 13 October - 20 November, 2022. Further details here
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Kate Stevens and Tristan Chant have been announced finalists of the 2022 Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, Stevens with a work painted from BBC News drone footage of Aleppo, Syria filmed in 2017 and Chant with a powerful and confronting screen print. The exhibition runs 29 October - 9 December, 2022 at Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney. Further details here
Image: Installation view, Bowness Photography Prize featuring artwork by Jesse Marlow, Petrina Hicks, Robert Fielding, Janet Laurence and David Stephenson, Monash Gallery of Art, 2022 Photo: Andrew Curtis
May 2022
We are pleased to announce that Mayatjara, Robert Fielding’s series of 24 photographs of Elders of the APY community has been acquired by the National Portrait Gallery. This is a significant moment for the artist, for the gallery, and for future generations. For their annual appeal, Karen Quinlan AM, Director of the NPG noted, “This year, the National Portrait Gallery invites you to contribute to the best of contemporary photographic portraiture. We are committed to the acquisition of works such as this compelling group of significant portraits by photographer Robert Fielding. The series captures Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Traditional Owners and custodians, respected and significant leaders, advocates and artists within the communities of the APY Lands. Their representation in the national portrait collection contributes to the Gallery’s aim of establishing itself as a space for promoting understanding and appreciation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, histories and ongoing cultures and their centrality to our shared national culture and identity. We are delighted to have the opportunity to bring these works into the collection, and we look forward to presenting the entire series of 24 beautifully realised photographic portraits.” Further details here.
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Robert Fielding’s Miil-miilpa series is currently on display in the 2022 National Photography Prize at Murray Art Museum Albury. “This series of photographs has been created as a collaboration with manta, at one with country, in the landscape and informed by natural influence. Using a UV-sensitive chemical process I have exposed snapshots of the sacred land within its very sands. We all need to recognise: this land is sacred. Manta (earth) is sacred. It holds our ancestors, and will hold us one day. Manta miil-miilpa. These images mirror the living essence that is inside of us all.” The exhibition runs to 5 June 2022. Further details here.
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Robert Fielding’s Holden On (2021–22) is presented on a pontoon on Lake Burley Griffin for the duration of the 4th National Indigenous Art Triennial: Ceremony at the National Gallery of Australia. The artificial lake was created in 1963 through the damming of the Molonglo River, which resulted in the flooding and destruction of an important ceremonial ground near the current National Museum of Australia. The strategic positioning of his artwork comments on the annexing of Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country to create Kamberri/Canberra, the seat of colonial political power in this country. For Fielding, the work speaks to the endurance and evolution of First Nations people. The exhibition runs to 31 July 2022. Further details here.
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Robert Fielding’s In your hands (2016) is now on display as part of Queer: Stories from the NGV Collection, an exhibition of work that spans historical eras and diverse media including painting, drawing, photography, decorative arts, fashion, video, sculpture, and design and explores queerness as an expression of sexuality and gender, a political movement, a sensibility, and as an attitude that defies fixed definition. The exhibition runs to 28 August. Further details here.
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David Booth celebrated the opening of his exhibition Set Adrift on Garden Bliss at St Heliers Gallery at the Abbotsford Convent this past weekend. Thank you to all those who joined us for the afternoon. The exhibition runs through to 19 June and the catalogue can be accessed via our website here.
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Mia Boe’s painting Friction with Nature (2022) has been acquired by Artbank. As part of their Salon Sessions in mid May, guests of Artbank Melbourne heard from Boe and Nabilah Nordin in conversation with Amelia Winata.
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Mia Boe is currently exhibiting in Making Place: 100 Views of Brisbane, a presentation of more than 100 historical and contemporary depictions of the Brisbane region from Museum of Brisbane Collection. The exhibition runs to 31 July at Museum of Brisbane. Further details here.
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Mia Boe is currently exhibiting in While You Were Sleeping Volume 2, a showcase of contemporary First Nations artists from multi-disciplinary backgrounds including street art, fine art, photography, illustration, digital, sculpture, film and more. The exhibition runs to 31 July at Ambush Gallery, Canberra. Further details here.
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Having presented his latest body of work Titans across two gallery spaces through April and May, Tristan Chant presented new tapestry and collage works in the group show WAREHOUSE from 19-21 May. Housed in an old warehouse adjacent to the Authority Creative studios the exhibition brought together four bodies of work by the artists which exemplify their love for materiality, process and experimentation. Documentation of Chant’s work can be found here.
Image: Robert Fielding, Western Arrernte and Yankunytjatjara peoples, Holden On, 2021-22, installation view, commissioned by the National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra for the 4th National Indigenous Art Triennial: Ceremony, image courtesy and © the artist
March 2022
David Booth’s Harri High Pants was created as the lead artwork for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. The smiling icon reached a global audience across banners, posters, signage, festival guides and all digital platforms for the 2022 program. Susan Provan, Festival Director, said of the artwork, “David’s confident and robustly happy character embodies the spirit of the Festival and shines a spotlight on the community of artists who bring our program to life every year.” Harri High Pants will return for the 2023 program. Further details here.
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Amala Groom undertook her Paramatta Artists’ Studios (PAS) Open digital residency in November 2021 and presented the work she developed during this time, Myths & Legends, at the 2022 Melbourne Art Fair as both performance and exhibition. Groom spent time researching and developing a new body of work that challenges and reframes the misconceptions around First Peoples ontologies, methodologies and epistemologies as being 'fantasy' over 'reality', with Indigenous worldviews commonly deemed in western society as being of 'myth' and of 'legend'. Groom worked with dramaturg Madeline Collie during her residency to make 'the wall text human' through scripting a work that implicates the audience by finding a performance device that removes the hierarchy of 'performance lecturer' and 'knowledge holder' and the audience as people who also have 'knowledge'. Documentation of Amala Groom’s performance Myths & Legends can be found here.