Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair | DAAF 2012

With opening speeches from Cathy Cummins (DAAF Chairwoman), Bill Risk (Larrakia lands), Pierre Arpin (Director of MAGNT) and Franchesca Cubillo (Senior Curator of Indigenous Art at NGA), and several hundred spectators, we are off to a flying start.

South Australian artist Dickie Minyintiri has been awarded Australia’s most prestigious Indigenous art prize for his insightful painting reflective of his rich personal history, at the 28th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award.

All eyes are on the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory at the moment in anticipation of Thursday night’s announcement of the winner of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award. Now in its 28th year, this is the most prestigious Indigenous art award in Australia and the announcement of the major prize is often surrounded by controversy. From Richard Bell’s derivations of American abstract and pop art, to Danie Mellor’s depiction of traditional dancers in a Freemason’s lodge and the grass Toyota by the Tjanpi Desert Weavers, the Telstra Award is never short on challenging work.

What happens when you combine the artwork of the world’s oldest culture with the latest web broadcasting technology available? Check out the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair – online, on Facebook, on Twitter or on your mobile and find out. As hundreds of arts dealers, collectors, curators and critics from around Australia converge on the Top End for the Darwin Festival’s packed visual arts program, a conversation is starting up using social media to connect people with diverse interests who are in Darwin for the same events.

Aboriginal watercolour artists from central Australia will conduct a series of workshops at the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair tapping into the traditions of the great Arrernte artists Albert Namatjira and Wenten Rubuntja. The workshops, supported by Charles Darwin University, give the opportunity to explore Australian landscape art from the perspective of the Hermannsburg School of painting inspired by Namatjira and continued by many of his relatives.

Artist workshops and demonstrations dominate the program at this year’s Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair due to open at the Convention Centre on August 12. “With over a hundred artists from remote communities in town for the Fair this was the perfect opportunity to offer a hands on experience to the public,” said DAAF Chair, Cathy Cummins. “This year’s Public Program at the Fair is ground breaking,” Cummins said. “For the first time we are bringing together artists working in different mediums to present a series of hands on workshops including painting, boab carving and fibre,” she said.

The late Warlpiri artist Yulyurlu Lorna Fencer Napurrurla was honoured last night at the Chan Contemporary Art Space in Darwin. This stunning array of works is the first solo exhibition of Napurrurla’s art since her death in 2006. Instigated by Barbara Pedersen of Mimi Arts in Katherine and curated by Margie West this show documents the incredible range and diversity of style that the artist achieved throughout her career.

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Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair is preparing for our biggest event yet with a record number of Art Centre registrations and great line up of public forums, workshops, guided tours and artist demonstrations. Now in its fifth year DAAF is well and truly on the map for both Darwin residents and interstate visitors in town for the wealth of Aboriginal art and culture that centres around the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award and the Darwin Festival.