CIAF: Aboriginal art that is kooky and diverse If Marshall Bell’s mixed-media sculpture Vase of Flowers looks faintly familiar, that may be because it’s a riff on one of Australia’s best known paintings: Margaret Preston’s 1928 work Aboriginal Flowers. While Preston depicted the artificial blooms which Aboriginal women of that era created from feathers and sold to tourists, Bell’s work features a bunch of kangaroos – shiny creatures on long metal stems, unfurling themselves from embryo-like poses and almost hopping out of the vase. The 2006 piece, as reported in The Guardian, is part of an exhibition of contemporary sculpture at Cairns Regional Gallery, staged in conjunction with the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF). Bell’s work also carries a serious message, says Bruce McLean, curator of the Solid! exhibition, symbolising the way Aboriginal people have “broken out … and come to greater recognition”. Bell spent much of his life fighting for land rights, before he passed away last year. Long overlooked by critics and collectors, Queensland’s Indigenous art has come to the fore over the past decade, largely thanks to a state government initiative which boosted funding for community arts centres and established CIAF in 2009, as an annual showcase. But following the election of Campbell Newman’s cost-cutting government, CIAF’s future looked shaky; there was no fair in 2013.. Read the full story here: goo.gl/trCF7m
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 22:59:07 +0000
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