The Xstrata Coal Emerging Indigenous Art Award
Jonathan Jones wins new national Indigenous art award
7 April 2006
Sydney artist Jonathan Jones is the winner of a new national Indigenous art award, Minister for the Arts Rod Welford announced today at the Queensland Art Gallery.
Queensland Art Gallery Director Doug Hall said Jones, 28, of the Kamilaroi/Wiradjuri people of New South Wales, received the inaugural $30 000, acquisitive Xstrata Coal Emerging Indigenous Art Award for his large-scale sculptural installation, Lumination fall wall weave 2004/2006.
‘Jones was selected from a short-list of ten finalists whose work demonstrates some of the most interesting and dynamic emerging Indigenous art currently happening in Australia.
‘The Award is complemented by a $50 000 annual grant from Xstrata Coal for the Gallery to acquire works by Indigenous artists’, he said.
The ‘Xstrata Coal Emerging Indigenous Art Award’ exhibition, featuring Jones’s award-winning work and works by the other nine artists, will be on display at the Queensland Art Gallery from 8 April to 21 May 2006.
Lumination fall wall weave is an elegant, illuminated installation featuring a single length of white electrical cord ‘hand-woven’ through a seven-metre-long wall.
In a statement about the Award, the selection committee said Jones’s beautifully crafted installation, which suggested many possible readings, made a sophisticated contribution to Indigenous arts practice today.
The committee said the work echoed Jones’ mother’s sewing practice, transporting the domestic into a public space with a grand elegance.
‘It explores various dualities such as open and closed, secular and sacred, seen and unseen, masculine and feminine.
‘Jonathan Jones promises a purposeful and assured contribution to contemporary Australian art,’ the committee said.
In selecting finalists for the Xstrata Coal Emerging Indigenous Art Award, the committee sought excellent and innovative work by emerging artists from both urban centres and regional and remote communities.
The committee considered the work of artists of all ages, working across a range of media: the oldest artist in the exhibition is in her 80s, since for cultural reasons Indigenous artists sometimes commence their artistic practice late in life.
Other finalists’ works include paintings by Roma Nyutjangka Butler (WA), Timothy Cook (NT), Emily Evans (QLD), Sally Gabori (QLD), Mignonette Jamin (WA), Raelene Kerinauia (NT) and Minnie Lumai (WA), metal sculptural works in the form of traditional women’s implements by Lorraine Connelly-Northey (VIC), and landscape photographs by Nici Cumpston (SA).
In addition to Doug Hall, the artist selection committee comprised Lynne Seear, Assistant Director, Curatorial and Collection Development, Queensland Art Gallery; Ms Avril Quaill, Principal Project Officer, Queensland Indigenous Arts Marketing and Export Agency; Dr Julie Gough, Lecturer in Visual Arts, James Cook University; Ms Seva Frangos, Arts Consultant; and Colin Whyte, General Manager Sustainable Development, Xstrata Coal.
Other finalists’ works include paintings by Roma Nyutjangka Butler (WA), Timothy Cook (NT), Emily Evans (QLD), Sally Gabori ((QLD), Mignonette Jamin (WA), Raelene Kerinauia (NT) and Minnie Lumai (WA), metal sculptural works in the form of traditional women’s implements by Lorraine Connelly-Northey (VIC) and landscape photographs by Nici Cumpston (SA).
In addition to Doug Hall, the artist selection committee comprised Lynne Seear, Assistant Director, Curatorial and Collection Development, Queensland Art Gallery; Ms Avril Quaill, Principal Project Officer, Queensland Indigenous Arts Marketing and Export Agency; Dr Julie Gough, Lecturer in Visual Arts, James Cook University, Ms Seva Frangos, Arts Consultant and Colin Whyte, General Manager Sustainable Development, Xstrata Coal.
