WELCOME TO OUR VIRTUAL GALLERY
LAUNCHING THURS 12th NOVEMBER 6.PM
We are excited to announce we will be opening for Fringe Festival 2020, Nov 12 - Nov 29. Keeping safe Blak Dot offers a contactless check-in, we strongly encourage everyone to wear a face covering while in the gallery. Thank you this will help protect you and our community.
After opening night,
OPENING HOURS
Thurs–Sat: 12pm-5pm
Sun: 12-4pm
Blak Dot Gallery acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land on which we work, live and create: the Wurundjeri people and Elders past and present of the Kulin nations, Naarm (Melbourne).
EXISTING ON TWO PLANES
Omens, portents and messages from the other side. Stories of dreams, ancestral spirit visitors and the messages we receive daily as we walk through life. They are often warnings or telling of family events or suffering. A portent of death or of future birth. A warning of impending pain or a harbinger of future happiness.
As Indigenous and First Nations people we walk through life tuned into the spirit plane as well as the living plane. We weave mana and meaning into the things we create and understand that the spirituality of things is integral to its existence in the material world.
The show offers unique contemporary First Nations and Pacific art and includes sculpture, print, weaving, digital multimedia and floral installation.
Curated by: Kimba Thompson
ARTISTS:
| Brian Martin |
Brian Martin is a descendant of Bundjalung, MurraWarri and Kamilaroi peoples and has been a practising artist for 30 years exhibiting in the media of painting and drawing. His research and practice focus on refiguring Australian art and culture from an Indigenous ideological perspective based on a reciprocal relationship to Country. He has published numerous essays and articles and is an impassioned educator and communicator. His work has been recognised in various art prizes and is held in various private and public collections including the National Gallery of Victoria. His publication history has investigated the relationship of materialism in the arts to an Indigenous worldview and Aboriginal knowledge framework and epistemology. He has further reconfigured understandings of culture and visual practice from an Aboriginal perspective. Brian is the inaugural Associate Dean Indigenous in the Faculty of Art Design and Architecture (MADA) at Monash University, where he leads the Wominjeka Djeembana research lab and is honorary professor of Eminence with Centurion University of Technology and Management in Odisha, India. He is represented by William Mora Galleries, Richmond.
| Frances Tapueluelu |
Frances Tapueluelu’s culturally motivated and often politically-charged works extend from textiles, wearable art and print media to spoken-word performance. A New Zealand-born Tongan, of Vava’u and Nuku’alofa descent, Frances graduated with a degree in Fashion Design, going on to work in the New Zealand fashion and film industries before migrating to Naarm (Melbourne) in 2000 where she is currently based. Her works have featured in numerous exhibitions across Australia and New Zealand and have been added to permanent collections internationally.
| Lisa Waup |
Lisa Waup is a mixed-race First Nations and Italian woman with a multidisciplinary art practice and is also a curator, born in Naarm (Melbourne) and currently a visitor on Boon Wurrung Country. Waup’s practice is studio-based, and involves the creation of objects, with a strong connection of symbology through her work and materials which connects her to family, Country, history and story. She works across weaving, printmaking, photography, sculpture, textiles and installation and her work eloquently illustrates her life’s journey through discovery and connection. Waup’s practice highlighting the importance of tracing lost history, ancestral relationships, Country, motherhood and time which ultimately are woven stories of her past, present and future into contemporary forms.
| Tama Sharman |
Tama Sharman Artist/Printmaker born in Otepoti Aotearoa 1975 and is now living and creating in Narrm/melbourne. Diploma of Visual Arts Painting at Victoria University,Bachelor of Fine Arts Printmaking with Honours from the Victorian Collage of the Arts in 2010.
Tama has continued active creative practice for 30 years, contributing to regular exhibitions over the past fifteen years. Beginning with his first solo exhibition at Fitzroy gallery in 2005. 2009 attended intensive course in traditional Japanese woodblock printing at Nagasawa Art Park, Japan. 2011 represented Aotearoa in the World Plate and Print Art exhibition, South Korea. 2013 awarded a Darebin art prize and Pacific Transformer series was acquired by National Gallery of Victoria. In 2017 first short film Scratching’s debuted at Tilde International Film Festival. 2018 recipient of the Major award for MAAP and was part of Blak Dot Gallery LOCK IN with fringe festival 2019 in Narrm focus on towards exhibiting unauthenticated at Blak Dot Gallery - also seen new adventures with a duo exhibition in Bengaluru India – interest in playing with new ways to exhibit, created multiple mini solo exhibitions in Spain and on the plane. 2020 solo exhibition Dark Sepia at Incinerator Gallery.
| Tāne Te Manu McRoberts |
Tāne Te Manu McRoberts is a Māori weaver and designer of fine and intricate Polynesian attire. Inspired by his ancestral lineage he creates traditional and contemporary works, from natural and modern resources.
Tāne Te Manu is direct descendant of Ngāti Mākino & Ngāti Rangitihi- Te Arawa & Te Whānau ā Apanui- Tauira Mai Tawhiti, all of which are descendants of Tahiti, Ra’iātea (Māohi) & Hawai’i (Māoli).
| Veisinia Tonga |
Veisinia Tonga is a Kakala (plant material) Artist. A settler who is creating on the lands of the Kulin Nations. Veisinia marries her training in western floristry with her traditional kakala knowledge to create installations with plant material gleaned from her surroundings. Plants in Tonga tell stories of place and are often symbolic of lineage and legends. Veisinia is interested in examining how this can evolve on a foreign land using foreign kakala.
| Michael Jalaru Torres |
Michael is an Indigenous photographer and media professional from Broome, Western Australia, who is now currently based in Naarm Melbourne, Victoria.
As a Djugan and Yawuru man with tribal connections to Jabirr Jabirr and Gooniyandi people, he is inspired by the unique landscapes and people of the Kimberley region, which feature prominently in his work.
‘My photography draws on my own stories and personal history and explores contemporary social and political issues facing Indigenous people. Much of my work involves conceptual and innovative portraiture and abstract landscape photography.
Through my portraits of people taken ‘on country’ I promote positive and individualised representations of Indigenous people. I also incorporate etching, drawing and other design work into my conceptual photography, combining traditional and iconic Kimberley imagery within a modern aesthetic.’
Image credit : Herenga Wairua - Tāne Te Manu
Live performance by LayTheMystic
Tunes from DJ Psychosis
