NCCA presents Vexed, a solo exhibition by Fiona Foley in the main gallery and screen room. Taking its name from Foley’s 2013 video work which was filmed in Alice Springs, Vexed concerns the disruption to traditional courting and betrothal/marriage customs wrought by colonisation. Implicit in this scenario is the vexed and changing role of Aboriginal women on the colonial frontier. The exhibition will feature retrospective works by Foley that address the same theme, as well as a new letter-based sculpture spelling the words ‘Black Velvet’, produced in association with Brisbane-based Urban Art Projects.

Fiona Foley is a Badtjala artist from Fraser Island (Thoorgine), Queensland, who resides in Brisbane. She is one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists; in 2014 she was awarded the Australia Council’s Visual Arts Award, recognised as a ‘fearless advocate for Indigenous political and social equality’.

Grain & Gold, Darwin-based artist Brittany Jones offers an array of unmilled, lacquered wood 'slices' whose surfaces are adorned with pokered patterns incorporating intricate metal and enamel inlay. Rendered with exceptional skill and presented as an overall installation, Jones's sculptural objects reflect her interest in graphic design, typography, and the interplay of art and craft.

'I have always been a painter/crafter', writers Jones, whose practice as an artist/designer goes by the name of baked goods, a nod to her 'need to create handmade, tactile things'. Jones moved to Darwin from Melbourne in 2012. She has exhibited her paintings in numerous group shows in America (in Atlanta, Georgia, and at the Gasparilla Festival of the Arts, Tampa, Florida, for example) and in Australia (including Hidden Faces of the Archibald, Melbourne, 2012). Grain & Gold is her first solo exhibition.

Artist Talks July exhibitions 2014

A collaborative work between artists Michelle Culpitt (Darwin) and Annee Miron (Victoria), Burrow is inspired by a road trip from Alice Springs to Darwin taken by the artists in 2013. During the trip the artists were struck by the 'blackened folds in the landscape that hinted at burrows'. Apart from Culpitt's photographs partly serving as documentation of burrows and burrow-forms in the landscape, the artists also interpret the burrow more broadly as 'an opening, a passage between the known and the unknown, both an archaeology and architecture of the places and spaces between, beyond and underneath'. (Artists' statement, 2013) The exhibition, shown in NCCA's Gallery 1, combines Miron's sculptural installation (using found, woven cardboard) and Culpitt's photography (including explorations into polymer and copperplate gravure photographic printing along with duratran and digital prints).

Artist Talks July exhibitions 2014

Jabiru Prints is a selection of recent printmaking from senior students at West Arnhem College, Jabiru Area School, in association with the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation. Over the past 18 months, the students have produced mainly linocuts and etchings. This selection largely focuses on their etchings, including some initial experimenting with chine-collé. The subjects for these works include a range of popular cultural motifs which might be part of teenage life anywhere in Australia, along with motifs relating to Kakadu National Park and portraits of the people who figure in their lives.  

Under My Skin is an exhibition of photographic work by highly acclaimed Melbourne-based artist Polixeni Papapetrou. The exhibition comprises 11 works drawing from four different series by Papaetrou: Phantomwise (2002), Between Worlds (2009), The Dreamkeepers (2012), and The Ghillies (2013). In each of these series, the key character or characters in Papapetrou’s photographs are masked, a device which is given ample and imaginative reign in her work overall which deals in the psychologically poised world of archetypes, getting at and under the skin of fairytales and mythologies both personal and cultural.

Presented in association with Neville Pantazis, Parap Fine Foods, Darwin.

Polixeni Papapetrou is represented by Stills Gallery, Sydney. 

Catalogue essay by Maurice O'Riordan

Through photography UK artist Helen Bowes documents her site specific sculptures on their journey through Europe. These 'Nomadic Trademarks' as she calls them are a concept based on connection and trace, how place and people connect in society and the world at large.

Website: www.helenbowesartist.com

Darwin's 'discordant architecture' is food for Meacham's visual language through paintings and painted constructions/cut-outs which echo (and reimagine) the built environment, particularly its often overlooked interiors and exteriors.

Website: www.cocomeacham.wordpress.com

Windows separate the outside from the inside. They provide an inside peek into an enclosed space, but also let light into darkness. The concept of blurring contexts is something that my work has always explored. Whether it's between cross-cultural compositions, or the use of old and new materials and techniques. For this installation I want to play with the concept of 'inside' and 'outside', creating a world inside the window that reflects the outside environment. Water, plants and animals will play a role in imagery, cut out of paper and used to create a world of its own. Elysha will create a site specific white paper cut installation, custom made to the Boxset space window that will be suspended from the roof, reaching from ceiling to floor.