Zaachariaha Fielding | |
|---|---|
 Zaachariaha Fielding sings "Nina" in Adelaide, South Australia | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Zaachariaha Rameth Fielding |
| Origin | Quorn, South Australia, Australia |
| Genres | Electric-soul, Aboriginal music |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, artist |
| Instrument | Vocals |
Zaachariaha Rameth Fielding [1] (born 1991/1992) is an Aboriginal Australian musician and artist. He is best known as vocalist in the duo Electric Fields, with keyboard player and producer Michael Ross.
Zaachariaha Fielding was born in 1991 or 1992, [2] [3] the son of artist Robert Fielding [4] and Kaye Lowah [5] and the oldest of nine children. [6] After attending primary school in Quorn, South Australia, for a few years, the age of eight [7] he moved with his family to Mimili, in the remote Aboriginal homelands known as the APY lands, in north-west South Australia. [6] His paternal grandfather Bruce was removed from his family at age three and placed in the Colebrook Home in Quorn, South Australia, and never returned to Mimili, a child of the Stolen Generations. [3]
His first performance was at a school assembly aged seven [7] or eight, when he sang Elvis Presley's "Blue Suede Shoes", and later said that he knew that he wanted to be a performer from a young age. [3] He was strongly impressed by Whitney Houston growing up, and also watched many different bands which featured on the long-running TV music show Rage . [8]
After moving to Adelaide at the age of 13 [9] or 14 [3] for boarding school, [9] he found the transition to a western society dominated by rules and clocks challenging, and still does sometimes. [3] He graduated from Woodville High School, which he saw as "having to become an adult overnight – being thrown in at the deep end and having to learn how to survive in the western world". [7] He studied Indigenous Australian music and started producing his own work at the Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music at the University of Adelaide. [10] [11]
Fielding featured on TV music talent show The Voice , making it to the grand final with as the duo ZK, with Kristal West, in 2014. [8] [2] [12] [3]
Fielding and Michael Ross have been performing as Electric Fields since 2015, combining modern electric-soul music with Aboriginal culture [13] and singing in Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara besides English. [14]
They have been nominated for and won several awards, including the National Indigenous Music Awards 2017 (Best New Talent); [5] National Dreamtime Awards 2019 (Male Music Artist); [15] [16] National Live Music Awards (several wins, both Fielding individually and the duo); and the South Australian Music Awards. [17] They also came second in the Eurovision – Australia Decides contest which selected the act which would represent Australia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019. [18] They were eventually selected internally by SBS to represent Australia at the 2024 contest, with the song "One Milkali (One Blood)".
During the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia in 2020, he went to stay with his family and started painting with his nieces and nephews. Returning to Adelaide, he joined a group of artists at the APY Art Centre Collective in Adelaide, taking the opportunity to develop his talents in visual art. [6] [19]
His work integrates traditional elements and lore (Tjukurpa) with his personal style and his own view of Country, influenced by his memories of growing up in Mimili. In 2023 he said: [20]
I approach my practice in a way where there is no division. I don't like to think of myself as an LGBTQ person or an Aboriginal person or a person of colour. That's not where I am at any more. I am looking beyond that.
Fielding's first exhibition, Zaachariaha Fielding: Gold and Silver Linings, was mounted at the gallery from November to December 2020. He is represented by Hugo Michell Gallery and Jan Murphy Gallery. [6] [19]
Fielding's paintings, along with ceramic art Arrernte artist Alfred Lowe from the Central Desert, were displayed in an exhibition called Z munu A Titutjara ("Z and A Forever"), held at the Hugo Michell Gallery in Adelaide in October–November 2023, as part of Tarnanthi. [21] [20]
His work was selected as a finalist for the Ramsay Art Prize at the Art Gallery of South Australia in 2021. [22]
In May 2023 Fielding won the prestigious Wynne Prize for his acrylic painting representing the sounds of Mimili, titled Inma. [23] [24]
In August 2023 it was announced that his multi-panel work Wonder Drug had won the Ramsay Art Prize A$15,000 People's Choice prize at the Art Gallery of South Australia. [25] [4]
He was a finalist for the 2024 Hadley's Art Prize for landscape. [26]
In 2016, Fielding was one of four finalists in the Department of Human Services Aboriginal Achievement Award for the South Australian Young Achiever Awards, impressing judges with "how he shares his culture and language through music – breaking down cultural barriers and giving inspiration to young Aboriginal people". [2]
In 2019, he was awarded the Rowdy Group Creative Achievement Award in the 7NEWS Young Achiever Awards. [27]
Fielding was selected by Baz Luhrmann to sing "Somewhere over the Rainbow" in the Yolngu language in his 2008 film Australia . [2]
He provided additional music for the 2010 documentary short film Ngura Ini Mimili Nya: A Place Called Mimili, [28] about a group of children in Mimili preparing to compete in the annual Ernabella Dance Competition. [29]
Electric Fields are the subject of a 2018 SBS/NITV documentary, "Voice From The Desert", part of the Our Stories series, featuring emerging Indigenous Australian creatives. It follows Fielding on a visit to Mimili, where he examines his early life experiences growing up in remote South Australia and his artistic and personal growth, and includes interviews with his parents. [5]
The 2019 short film "Electric Mimili", part of the Deadly Family Portraits series, was shown on ABC Television and iview. This film, directed by Isaac Cohen Lindsay and produced by Sierra Schrader, focuses on his and his father's family and life in Mimili, and how both father and son have been influenced by these. [9] The series of three films included one Elaine Crombie and her mother Lillian Crombie, and another about dancers Taree and Caleena Sansbury. [30]
Fielding and Ross wrote the songs "Shade Away" and "Don't You Worry", which are featured in the soundtrack for the 2019 feature film Top End Wedding , performed by Electric Fields. [31]
He appears as himself, as part of the duo Electric Fields, in Taryn Brumfitts' 2022 film about body image, Embrace: Kids . [32]
Albert Namatjira was an Arrernte painter from the MacDonnell Ranges in Central Australia, widely considered one of the most notable Australian artists. As a pioneer of contemporary Indigenous Australian art, he was arguably one of the most famous Indigenous Australians of his generation. He was the first Aboriginal artist to receive popularity from a wide Australian audience.
The South Australian Museum is a natural history museum and research institution in Adelaide, South Australia, founded in 1856 and owned by the Government of South Australia. It occupies a complex of buildings on North Terrace in the cultural precinct of the Adelaide Parklands. Plans are under way to move much of its Australian Aboriginal cultural collection, into a new National Gallery for Aboriginal Art and Cultures.
Robert Lyall "Alfie" Hannaford is an Australian realist artist notable for his drawings, paintings, portraits and sculptures. He is a great-great-great-grandson of Susannah Hannaford.
Harold Joseph Thomas, also known as Bundoo, is an Aboriginal Australian artist and former activist, known for designing and copyrighting the Australian Aboriginal flag. He claims to have designed the flag in 1971 as a symbol of the Aboriginal land rights movement, and in 1995 it was made an official "Flag of Australia". After this, his assertion of copyright over his design was upheld by the Federal Court, eventually transferring that copyright to the Commonwealth of Australia and making it freely available for public use in January 2022.
The Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), established as the National Gallery of South Australia in 1881, is located in Adelaide. It is the most significant visual arts museum in the Australian state of South Australia. It has a collection of almost 45,000 works of art, making it the second largest state art collection in Australia. As part of North Terrace cultural precinct, the gallery is flanked by the South Australian Museum to the west and the University of Adelaide to the east.
Richard Bell is an Aboriginal Australian artist and political activist. He is one of the founders of proppaNOW, a Brisbane-based Aboriginal art collective.
Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara, also known as APY, APY Lands or the Lands, is a large, sparsely-populated local government area (LGA) for Aboriginal people, located in the remote north west of South Australia. Some of the Aṉangu (people) of the Western Desert cultural bloc, in particular Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra peoples, inhabit the Lands.
Mimili is an Aboriginal community in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in South Australia, comprising one of the six main communities on "The Lands". At the 2016 Australian census, Mimili had a population of 243.
Indulkana is an Aboriginal community in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in South Australia, comprising one of the six main communities on "The Lands". At the 2016 Australian census, Indulkana had a population of 256.
Contemporary Indigenous Australian art is the modern art work produced by Indigenous Australians, that is, Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander people. It is generally regarded as beginning in 1971 with a painting movement that started at Papunya, northwest of Alice Springs, Northern Territory, involving Aboriginal artists such as Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and Kaapa Tjampitjinpa, and facilitated by white Australian teacher and art worker Geoffrey Bardon. The movement spawned widespread interest across rural and remote Aboriginal Australia in creating art, while contemporary Indigenous art of a different nature also emerged in urban centres; together they have become central to Australian art. Indigenous art centres have fostered the emergence of the contemporary art movement, and as of 2010 were estimated to represent over 5000 artists, mostly in Australia's north and west.
Tjungkara Ken is a Pitjantjatjara artist from Amata, South Australia, in the APY lands. She began painting in 1997, when Minymaku Arts was opened by the women of Amaṯa. She started painting professionally in 2008. By that time, the artists' co-operative had been renamed Tjala Arts.
Milatjari Pumani (1928–2014) was an Aboriginal Australian artist from Mimili in South Australia. She is perhaps the most well-known artist from this community, and the first to gain a significant level of success for the community's centre, Mimili Maku. Her eldest daughter, Ngupulya, is also a successful painter.
Electric Fields is an Australian electronic music duo made up of vocalist Zaachariaha Fielding and keyboard player and producer Michael Ross. Electric Fields combine modern electric-soul music with Aboriginal culture and sing in Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara and English. The duo have released an EP and several singles. In 2024, they became the first duo to represent Australia in the Eurovision Song Contest, with the song "One Milkali ".
Vincent Namatjira is an Aboriginal Australian artist living in Indulkana, in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara in South Australia. He has won many art awards, and after being nominated for the Archibald Prize several times, he became the first Aboriginal person to win it in 2020. He is the great-grandson of the Arrente watercolour artist Albert Namatjira.
Barbara Mbitjana Moore is an Anmatyerre woman who grew up in Ti-Tree in the Northern Territory, moving later to Amata in South Australia's Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. In April 2003, Moore began painting at Amata's Tjala Arts, and, since then, has received widespread recognition. Moore won a National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2012 and has been a finalist in many other years. Moore has also been a finalist for the Wynne Prize.
Mimili Maku Arts, often referred to as Mimili Maku, is an Aboriginal-owned and -led arts centre located in the remote community of Mimili in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands, in the remote north-west of South Australia.
Tuppy Ngintja Goodwin is an Aboriginal Australian artist from South Australia. She is a painter, and director of Mimili Maku Arts.
Dem Mob, stylised as DEM MOB, is an Aboriginal hip hop group from the APY lands in northern South Australia, the first to rap in the Pitjantjatjara language.
Betty Muffler is an Aboriginal Australian artist and ngangkari (healer). She is a senior artist at Iwantja Arts, in Indulkana in Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara, South Australia, known for a series of works on large linen canvases called Ngangkari Ngura .
Robert Fielding is an Australian artist based in Mimili, South Australia. He is known for his recent series of photographs of wrecked cars and other discarded objects on which he has painted colourful designs.
At just 27 years of age...
...says Fielding, 29,...
| Authority control databases: Artists |
|---|
