Daniel Boyd is set to become, if he isn’t already, one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists, and his exhibition Daniel Boyd: Treasure Island is on at the AGNSW until 29 January 2023. Co-curator of this free exhibition, Isobel Parker Philip talks to Arts Wednesday about why Daniel is such an important artist.

Daniel’s forbears were taken forcibly from Vanuatu as indentured labourers in what was referred to as ‘blackbirding’. First Nations history and the ongoing effects of colonisation informs a lot of his subject matter; and there is always a political edge to his work.

In his final year of art school, Boyd began the seminal No Beard series, which he exhibited in his first solo exhibition at the Mori Gallery in Sydney –  the work was so  significant the National Gallery of Australia ended up purchasing the entire collection.

More recently Daniel uses a technique, a motif, he refers to as ‘lenses’, where he covers the image with dots of archival glue to obscure the image below. After he has covered the canvas in these dots, he then paints over them to create form by selectively shading in different parts of the canvas. As he says, the lenses obscure our view of aboriginal history by the narrative of colonial history. We could equally say these transparent dots represent 60,000 years of native footprint and in contrast to what sits under them – images of colonisers, or invaders, archival photographs of blackbirding, images of massacres and idyllic  landscapes, and even family picnics – they claim rightful ownership of an ancient land forever waxing and waining into eternity – and all the while they have been its witnesses.

The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards are on at the Museum and Gallery of Northern Territory until 15 January 2023, with the winners having just been announced. This year’s overall winner is Margaret Rarru Garrawurra, for her work Dhomala (pandanus sail). 

Curator, Rebekah Raymond, talks us through this annual exhibition which has become the country’s richest art prize pool for indigenous art. This year’s finalists included many media and genres such as recycled woollen blankets to emu feathers and also video and photography. Other prize categories include painting, bark paining, works on paper, 3D works, multimedia and emerging artist awards. Just goes to show, first nations art is no longer just about dots and rarrk, it is so very much more.

Arts Wednesday 10 August 2022

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