The National Gallery of Australia has launched the 5th National Indigenous Art Triennial, titled After the Rain, curated by Tony Albert. The exhibition explores cultural and familial legacies two years on from the failed Indigenous voice to parliament referendum. It features 57 artists, including a major installation recreating the home of renowned watercolourist Albert Namatjira.
Albert Namatjira built a two-room sandstone house on the banks of the Lhara Pinta (Finke River) in Central Australia in 1940. The house, which still stands, has been recreated almost to scale in multicoloured stained glass as the centrepiece of the triennial. The glasshouse, a collaboration between Canberra Glassworks and the Iltja Ntjarra Art Centre, is described by curator Tony Albert as 'lit from within, almost like this breath or this heartbeat'. It is accompanied by works from Namatjira's family and community, including painted clay objects from his home.
The triennial includes work from 25-year-old Gumbaynggirr artist Aretha Brown, whose mural greets visitors with a timeline from British arrival to the 2023 referendum. She says: 'It feels, after the referendum, as if everything has been burnt down. But now the seeds are going to come back stronger and greener.' Vincent Namatjira, great-grandson of Albert Namatjira and first Indigenous winner of the Archibald prize, has painted portraits of all triennial artists.
Curator Tony Albert notes that this is the first time the triennial has been held three years after the previous iteration, as originally intended. Gallery director Nick Mitzevich has committed to a three-year cycle. The theme After the Rain was chosen for its 'poetics', with artists responding with both optimism and acknowledgment of potential devastation. Works address environmental issues, such as Jimmy John Thaiday's video on rising tides and ghost nets in the Torres Strait, and Warraba Weatherall's installation linking environmental destruction to cultural suppression.
