Apparel brand Country Road’s partnership with the National Gallery of Victoria to commission artwork from eight emerging First Nations artists has come to a head this week.
The Country Road + NGV First Nations Commissions is a year-long national mentorship program where selected First Nations artists were paired with an industry mentor to conceptualise a major work of art that responds to the theme ‘My Country’.
All commissioned work will be displayed at The Ian Potter Centre at the NGV from March 22, 2024.
NGV director Tony Ellwood AM said the partnership creates a major new platform for First Nations art and design in Australia.
“The unique mentorship format – the only one of its kind in Australia – offers a career-defining opportunity to emerging practitioners to create a new work under the guidance of a mentor.”
“We’re grateful for the support of Country Road for this important new initiative. This mentorship program has enabled NGV to cultivate important new relationships with First Nations practitioners across the country.”
Country Road managing director Elle Roseby called it a first-of-its-kind partnership that is led by First Nations artists.
“This program presents an incredible opportunity to further our work in supporting First Nations communities,” Roseby said. “We’re thrilled to be working together with the NGV to platform inspiring creatives across the country, while celebrating their stories and increasing the recognition of First Nations cultures, histories and knowledge.”
The artists
The artists are based in various parts of Australia. South Australian artists Alec Baker and Eric Barney work at Iwantja Arts in Indulkana, and have produced two large collaborative paintings titled Ngura (Country). The artists were mentored by 2019 Ramsay Art Prize winner and the first Indigenous artist to be awarded the Archibald Prize, Vincent Namatjira OAM.
Tiwi artist Johnathon World Peace Bush - also known as Jon Jon - has created three paintings that depict stories of his and his cousin Pedro Wonaeamirri’s grandfather and father’s life and subsequent displacement from Murrakupupuni (Country) of Paluwiyanga (Goose Creek). His work was completed at Jilamara Arts, Melville Island, on Wulirankuwu Country. He was mentored by Wonaeamirri.
Miriwoong artist Jan Baljagil Gunjaka Griffiths produced ceramic hand-painted work titled Tree of knowledge. Griffiths was mentored by her mother and senior artist Peggy Griffiths, who is also a Miriwoong woman from Kununurra in the East Kimberley, Western Australia working out of Waringarri Arts.
Canberra-based artist and Walgalu and Wiradjuri man Aidan Hartshorn was mentored by Nunga (Kaurna Miyurna) and Māori (Te Arawa) man James Tylor, producing sixteen individual diamond-shaped glass shields reflecting traditional Wiradjuri bark shields – each representing one of the dams of the Snowy Hydro.
Gamilaroi weaver and textile artist Sophie Honess produced three woven rugs titled Daruka – grass, water, granite. Honess was mentored by Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi man and contemporary artist, Jonathan Jones.
Boonwurrung and Barkindji man Mitch Mahoney has created two bark canoes, a red gum canoe and a river reed canoe, and was guided through proper cultural processes and protocols by Barkindji artist David Doyle - including learning how to collect bark for the canoe and healing the tree with mud.
Cheryl Rose, a Pataway-based (Burnie, Tasmania) multimedia artist created a wall-based installation titled Fragments. The large-scale work on Japanese Kozo paper includes hand-rendered images of caves at Pinmatik (Rocky Cape) and cultural tools that were historically removed from the site and subsequently archived at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Rose was mentored by Denise Robinson, with both women being descendants of the Trawlwoolway people.
Meanwhile, Brisbane-based Kamilaroi man Warraba Weatherall was mentored by Girramay/Yidinji/Kuku Yalanji man Tony Albert. For the commission, Weatherall designed a custom polyphon (a large disc-operated music player) which plays a musical composition created by translating oppressive archival documents into braille.
NGV senior curator of Australian and First Nations art Myles Russell-Cook said initiatives like the Country Road + NGV First Nations Commissions are vitally important.
“For many First Nations people, the concept of intergenerational knowledge transfer is at the heart of how we live our lives,” Russell-Cook said. “For artists, mentoring is a way of giving back.
“Mentorship is something that motivates us; it is about respecting the knowledge of those who have come before us, and making space for those who will come afterwards.”