Indigenous Australian art includes art made by Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, including collaborations with others. It includes works in a wide range of media including painting on leaves, bark painting, wood carving, rock carving, watercolour painting, sculpting, ceremonial clothing and sandpainting; art by Indigenous Australians that pre-dates European colonisation by thousands of years, up to the present day.
Australian art is a broad spectrum of art created in or about Australia, or by Australians overseas, spanning from prehistoric times to the present day. The art forms include, but are not limited to, Aboriginal, Colonial, Landscape, Atelier, and Contemporary art.
Mount Isa is a city in the Gulf Country region of Queensland, Australia. It came into existence because of the vast mineral deposits found in the area. Mount Isa Mines (MIM) is one of the most productive single mines in world history, based on combined production of lead, silver, copper and zinc.
Fiona Foley is a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist from K'gari, Queensland. Foley is known for her activity as an academic, cultural and community leader and for co-founding the Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative.
Emily Kame Kngwarreye was an Aboriginal Australian artist from the Utopia community in the Northern Territory. After only starting painting as a septuagenarian, Kngwarreye became one of the most prominent and successful artists in the history of Indigenous Australian art. She was a founding member of the Utopia Women's Batik Group and is known for her precise and detailed works.
Gordon Bennett was an Australian artist of Aboriginal and Anglo-Celtic descent. Born in Monto, Queensland, Bennett was a significant figure in contemporary Indigenous Australian art.
Gloria Petyarre (1942-2021), also known as Gloria Pitjara was born in Utopia, Northern Territory, Australia. She was an Aboriginal Australian artist from the Anmatyerre community, just north of Alice Springs. One of her best known works is "Bush Medicine".
The 2018 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XXI Commonwealth Games and also known as Gold Coast 2018, was an international multi-sport event for members of the Commonwealth that was held on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, between 4 and 15 April 2018. It was the fifth time Australia had hosted the Commonwealth Games and the first time a major multi-sport had an equal number of events for male and female athletes.
Makinti Napanangka was a Pintupi-speaking Indigenous Australian artist from Australia's Western Desert region. She was referred to posthumously as Kumentje. The term Kumentje was used instead of her personal name as it is customary among many indigenous communities not to refer to deceased people by their original given names for some time after their deaths. She lived in the communities of Haasts Bluff, Papunya, and later at Kintore, about 50 kilometres (31 mi) north-east of the Lake MacDonald region where she was born, on the border of the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
Rosella Namok is an Indigenous Australian artist from Lockhart River, Queensland. Namok was taught art at high school and learned printmaking and other techniques through a community art project in 1997 that led to the formation of a group of artists known as the Lockhart River Art Gang.
Josepha Petrick Kemarre is an Anmatyerre-speaking Indigenous Australian artist from Central Australia. Since first taking up painting around 1990, her works of contemporary Indigenous Australian art have been acquired by several major collections including Artbank and the National Gallery of Victoria. Her paintings portray bush plum "dreaming" and women’s ceremonies. One of her paintings sold at a charity auction for A$22,800. Josepha Petrick's works are strongly coloured and formalist in composition and regularly appear at commercial art auctions in Australia. Her art appears to have survived the huge contraction of the primary art market in Australia since 2008. There is no existing Catalogue raisonné of Josepha Petrick's artworks, to date, no fakes have been cited.
Quinkan rock art refers to a large body of locally, nationally and internationally significant Aboriginal rock art in Australia of a style characterised by their unique representations of "Quinkans", found among the sandstone escarpments around the small town of Laura, Queensland. Quinkan Country was inscribed on the Australian National Heritage List on 10 November 2018.
The Kalkadoon Wars were a series of encounters between European colonists and the Kalkadoon people of Australia.
Lena Nyadbi is a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist from the Warmun Community in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Her works include Dayiwul Lirlmim, details of which were painted on the roof of the Musée du quai Branly in Paris. The resulting installation can only be seen from the air, including the Eiffel Tower and Google Earth.
Borobi was the official mascot of the 2018 Commonwealth Games, in Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. Borobi is a male koala with blue fur and unusual markings on his paws. The name Borobi is derived from a dialect used by the Yugambeh people, an indigenous Australian group from the Gold Coast region. The mascot, along with its fictional back story, was revealed in April 2016. Borobi is based on a character submitted by Merrilyn Krohn, the winner of the GC2018 Mascot Design Competition.
The opening ceremony for the 2018 Commonwealth Games took place on the evening of Wednesday 4 April in the Carrara Stadium, Gold Coast. As mandated by the Commonwealth Games Charter, the proceedings of the ceremony combined the formal opening of the sporting event with an artistic performance to showcase the host nation's culture. The 2018 Games were formally opened by Charles, Prince of Wales. Jack Morton Worldwide was given the contract to produce the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2018 Commonwealth Games. The theme of the opening ceremony was Hello Earth and directed by David Zolkwer.
Munmarria Daisy Andrews, known professionally as Daisy Andrews, was an Australian artist originally from the Walmajarri desert tribe. After taking up artwork later in life – initially illustrating the personal stories of fellow community members – Andrews began exhibiting her paintings in group and solo showings across Australia. She was known for her vividly red landscapes showcasing the mountain ranges of the Great Sandy Desert. In 1994, she received the main Telstra award from the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA) for her painting Lumpa Lumpa landscape.
Carol McGregor is an Indigenous Australian artist of Wathaurung (Victoria) and Scottish descent, internationally known for her multi media installation pieces bringing together ephemeral natural fibres, metal, and paper. She is also deeply engaged in the creation of and cultural reconnection to possum skin cloaks, a traditional form of dress and important biographical cultural item.
Megan Cope is an Australian Aboriginal artist from the Quandamooka people of Stradbroke Island/Minjerribah. She is known for her sculptural installations, video art and paintings, in which she explores themes such as identity and colonialism. Cope is a member of the contemporary Indigenous art collective ProppaNOW in Brisbane.
Naomi Hobson is an Aboriginal Australian artist of southern Kaantju and Umpila heritage from Lockhart River, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. She works in many media, including painting, photography and ceramics. She started exhibiting in 2013.
