June 7, 2016
The connection of all Australians to country, the natural environment and to one another is the central theme of this month’s exhibition at the Wondai Regional Art Gallery.
During June the Gallery is hosting “Kinship” by Sunshine Coast Indigenous artist Jandamarra Cadd who work hasn’t been seen in the South Burnett since his last exhibition in 2013.
Jandamarra, who was a finalist in the Archibald Prize in 2014 with his portrait of Archie Roach, has been on the road with “Kinship” for almost two years.
He told the audience at Friday’s opening night that within months of having his work acknowledged by Australia’s top art competition, he had put together “Kinship” and has since seen it tour galleries across Queensland and interstate.
Nearly all the “Kinship” paintings have now been sold but the owners have given their permission to continue touring the works until September.
After this, Jandamarra will return to his latest project: preparing for next year’s Archibald with an as-yet-unseen portrait that has engaged him for the past 10 months.
Jandamarra said although all the subjects of “Kinship” are Indigenous, the feelings the paintings evoked could be easily understood by everyone, regardless of skin colour because they spoke about the fundamentally important things that bind all Australians together: connection to the land, to nature, and to our families and friends.
The exhibition continues the style of Jandamarra’s 2013 exhibition which featured large, powerful acrylic portraits.
This time around many of the paintings are also energised by dot styles; and while some tip their hat to photo-realism, others are executed with fluorescent brush strokes on stark black backgrounds that make the subjects appear to leap off the canvas.
“Kinship” fills the front and main galleries at Wondai, but a South Burnett component has been added by Cherbourg’s Ration Shed Museum and Cherbourg State School.
The Ration Shed’s “Strong Women Shadow Boxes” fills the Third Gallery, while Cherbourg State School students have their own works housed in Kidz Korner.
“Strong Women Shadow Boxes” was created in 2012 by a group of women elders and younger women from Cherbourg through a story-sharing process that remembered women in their lives who had given them strength and encouragement.
Each of the women involved in the project then created a memory box with photos, objects and archival material that told these stories.
In 2012 the exhibition won a Museum And Gallery Services Queensland GAMAA achievement award, and the shadow boxes have been exhibited at Cherbourg’s Ration Shed Museum ever since.
The June exhibition was opened by Cherbourg State School students with a Welcome To Country, after which Jandamarra and his wife Amy discussed the reasons they’d created “Kinship”.
Gallery curator Elaine Madill, Deputy Mayor Cr Kathy Duff and Cherbourg State School principal Stewart Fuller also spoke briefly, before Mayor Keith Campbell officially opened the exhibition.
- Kinship and Strong Women Shadow Boxes will remain on display at the Wondai Regional Art Gallery from 10:00am to 4:00pm daily until the end of the month; admission to view them is free.
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