string theory: focus on contemporary Australian art
16 August-27 October 2013
Tony Albert
Born 1981, Townsville, Queensland. Lives and works Sydney.
Tony Albert mines a range of imagery and source material from personal and collective
histories to question how audiences understand and perceive difference. Typically combining
texts appropriated from popular culture and art history, along with Hollywood images of
extraterrestrials, family photographs and a collection of ‘Aboriginalia’ (a term used by the artist
to describe objects that feature naive portrayals of Aboriginal people and their culture), Albert
weaves a tapestry of ideas.
The artist has exhibited in numerous exhibitions nationally and internationally, including Weight
of History, Singapore Art Museum (2013); Making Change, National Art Museum of China,
Beijing (2012); Contemporary Australia: Optimism, Queensland Art Gallery ǀ Gallery of Modern
Art , Brisbane, and Half Light: Portraits from Black Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales,
Sydney (both 2008). Most recently the artist presented a major solo work, Projecting our future,
for the AGNSW’s contemporary project space.
Albert’s work is held in a number of public and private collections within Australia including the
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Museum of Australia, Canberra; Queensland
Art Gallery ǀ Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane; the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney;
and the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth.
Jean Baptiste Apuatimi
c. 1940–2013. Born Pirlangimpi (Garden Point), Melville Island, Northern Territory. Lived and
worked Nguiu, Bathurst Island, Northern Territory. Died 2013, Nguiu.
Japijapunga skin group, Buffalo dance
Jean Baptiste Apuatimi was one of the most senior and distinguished artists of the Tiwi Islands.
The artist’s late husband, celebrated carver and painter Declan Karrilikiya Apuatimi, taught her
how to paint in order to carry on the tradition of depicting designs associated with important
ceremonies and Tiwi culture, and she began working as an artist at Tiwi Design Aboriginal
Corporation in 1997.
Apuatimi was widely recognised for her complex designs and unique compositions which
merged contemporary abstract paintings with representations of traditional Tiwi culture,
including depictions of Jilamara (body paint designs), tutini (ceremony pole), old tunga (bark
baskets) and pamijimi (arm band). Her work is held in major public and private collections in
Australia and internationally, including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, and Seattle
Art Museum, US. In 2007 the artist was selected to exhibit in the inaugural National Indigenous
Art Triennial, Culture Warriors at the NGA, Canberra.
The artist and her husband passed on their creative talent to daughters Maria Josette Orsto,
Carmelina Puanttalura (deceased), their son Declan Apuatimi and granddaughter Natalie
Puantalura.
Boolarng Nangamai Aboriginal Art & Culture Studio
Founded 2000, Gerringong, New South Wales.
Representing artists from the East Coast of Australia, local traditional people as well as inland
and coastal saltwater people, Boolarng Nangamai Aboriginal Art & Culture Studio was
established by nine Aboriginal artists and one non-Aboriginal artist on the New South Wales
South Coast to empower Aboriginal people and keep culture strong.
Boolarng Nangamai opened in 2005 as a creative micro-business, providing training and
advisory support, and to broker employment opportunities for the resident businesses that
include public art consultancy, design, printmaking, weaving, painting and filmmaking. In 2007
the collective launched Boolarng Nangamai Aboriginal Corporation, a non-profit organisation to
advise on cultural protocols and to help strengthen Aboriginal communities through making art
and practising culture.
Over the past seven years Boolarng Nangamai (meaning ‘Together Dreaming’ in the Biripi and
Dharawal languages) has been delivering workshops on spear and canoe making, shellwork
and weaving to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal groups. Their artists have been actively involved
in collaborative projects with the Museum of Sydney (2009), the 18th Biennale of Sydney
(2012), and cross-cultural exchanges nationally and internationally.
Frances Djulibing
Born 1963, Maningrida, Northern Territory.
Lives and works Ngangalala (Reny) Homeland, Northern Territory.
Yolngu people, Yirritja moiety, Daygurrgurr clan, Bangaditjan skin, Gupapuyngu language
While born in Maningrida, Frances Djulibing spent most of her childhood travelling between
Elcho Island, Ramingining and Milingimbi. She was taught her artistic skills by her father
Johnny Daingangan, and her weaving techniques by her mother Nancy Muwalpindi.
Currently residing about 10 km from Ramingining in North Eastern Arnhem Land, Djulibing is
the Chairperson of Bula’bula Arts Aboriginal Corporation, as well as being a mother,
grandmother, actor, weaver, linguist, translator, educator and comedian. She is best known for
playing the lead female role in 10 Canoes, the 2006 film by Rolf de Heer and Peter Djigirr, and
was the subject of Darlene Johnson’s documentary River of No Return. Recently, Djulibing
worked as associate producer on Charlie’s Country, the film by Rolf de Heer and David Gulpilil,
and is part of a theatre adaptation of King Lear, titled The Shadow King, for Melbourne’s
Malthouse Theatre in October 2013.
Djulibing is committed to teaching her children and grandchildren the techniques and stories
she learned from her parents, noting, ‘These kids are our future and I want them to carry on the
tradition’.
Robyn Djunginy
Born 1947, Ramingining, Northern Territory. Lives and works Ramingining.
Yirritja moiety, Gurrumba Gurrumba clan, Bulanydjan subsection, Ganalbingu language
A highly skilled fibre artist and painter, Robyn Djunginy is best known for her beautiful and
idiosyncratic woven bottle sculptures. She is from a family of respected artists including father
Ngulmarmar, brothers George Milpurrurru and Charlie Djurritjini, and sisters Dorothy Djukulul
and the late Elizabeth Djutarra. In her own works, Djunginy frequently draws on the water
goanna and the honey ancestor stories of her mother’s group, the Marrangu Djinang.
The artist began weaving bottle sculptures in 1983 on the suggestion of curator Djon Mundine,
using a local twining technique to produce multiple woven bottles of various sizes. The
sculptural qualities and the high workmanship of these objects led them to be recognised as
key contemporary Aboriginal fibre works. Djunginy also began producing two-dimensional
renderings of the woven sculptures on canvas.
The artist has participated in a number of significant exhibitions, including the 7th and 11th
Biennales of Sydney, The Native Born: Objects and Representations from Ramingining,
Arnhem Land (1996) and Floating Life: Contemporary Aboriginal Fibre Art (2009). In 2011
Djunginy was named as NAIDOC Artist of the Year.
Lola Greeno
Born 1946, Cape Barren Island, Tasmania. Lives and works Launceston, Tasmania.
Trawlwoolway language
A highly celebrated Tasmanian Aboriginal shell worker, sculptor, installation and fibre artist,
Lola Greeno is respected for her active role, along with a small group of Tasmanian women
shell stringers, in maintaining the knowledge of her Elders and reviving traditional skills through
the creation of distinctly contemporary artworks.
Greeno has been working with shell necklace making for over 30 years, collecting strikingly
patterned, often colourful and iridescent shells from the coastlines of mainland Tasmania and
the surrounding islands which are then delicately threaded into strands. While this continues a
traditional craft passed down from her mother, the artist works with the shell necklaces in a
distinctly contemporary manner, often incorporating them with woven fibre works or as parts of
sculptural installations. In this way, Greeno’s necklaces are a dynamic expression of the
contemporary lives of Indigenous Tasmanian women.
The artist’s works have been exhibited widely throughout Australia and internationally. Her
most recent project has been tayenebe: Tasmanian Aboriginal women’s fibre work (2009–12).
Greeno's role as a curator has also resulted in her input in a number of major exhibitions,
including Woven Forms: Contemporary Basket Making in Australia (2005–07).
Dale Harding
Born 1982, Moranbah, Queensland. Lives and works Brisbane.
Bidjara and Ghungalu people
A young Aboriginal artist based in Brisbane, Dale Harding has gained recognition for works that
explore ‘the untold histories’ of Aboriginal communities. Recently Harding has been
investigating what he calls ‘the social and political realities’ experienced by members of his
family who lived under the confinement and control of Queensland’s mission system.
The artist is currently undertaking his Honours year of study having completed a Bachelor of
Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art at the Queensland College of Arts, Griffith University
in Brisbane. Throughout his degree the artist has received numerous awards including a Griffith
University GAS Award in 2012.
Harding’s first solo exhibition, Colour by Number, was curated by Tony Albert at Brisbane’s
Metro Arts in 2012. He has participated in a number of exhibitions, including: My Country, I Still
Call Australia Home: Contemporary Art From Black Australia, Queensland Art Gallery ǀ Gallery
of Modern Art; Sovereignty, Webb Gallery; Aperitivo, Project Gallery; and Addition 3, Addition
Gallery (all Brisbane, 2012). Harding also contributed work to Tony Albert’s collaborative
project Pay Attention, exhibited at City Gallery, Wellington (2010), and at the National Gallery
of Australia, Canberra for the 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial, unDisclosed (2012).
Evelyn McGreen
Born c. 1942, Woorabinda, Queensland. Lives and works Hope Vale, Queensland.
Thupi Warra clan, Guugu Yimithirr language
An accomplished basket weaver, working with materials ranging from sisal hemp, pandanus
and bajin, and using bush dyes to colour the fibre, Evelyn McGreen was raised in Hope Vale,
an Aboriginal township on Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland. During World War II,
the military relocated the Hope Vale settlement’s entire population, including the artist’s parents
Roy and May Dick, to her birthplace of Woorabinda, an Aboriginal Reserve 170 km South-West
of Rockhampton. Her family returned to Hope Vale in the early 1950s; McGreen’s carpenter
father was influential in the re-establishment of the settlement, constructing a number of local
buildings including the church. In 1962 the artist married Benny McGreen and together they
had five children.
While teaching traditional arts and crafts throughout her life, it was since the early 2000s that
McGreen began developing a strong and expansive body of work in other mediums, gaining
international recognition for her prints based on traditional basket designs. Her works on paper
are held in numerous public collections including Artbank, Sydney; Parliament House,
Canberra; and the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.
Lipaki Marlaypa
Born 1932, Yirrkala, North-Eastern Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. Lives and works Yirrkala.
Yirritja moiety, Manatja clan, Yolngu Matha language
This woman is the last surviving member of a clan who were decimated in a massacre in the
early 20th century, referenced in the Yothu Yindi CD Birrkuda. In country that edges into Dhudi
Djapu clan land on the estate of Gawarratja is country associated with Dhalwau clan lore. It is a
Honey site of ancestral times sung by the Yirritja. The presence at this site of honey and icons
of the sugar bag, a manifestation of this deep seated knowledge, indicates ownership by the
clan of Dr M. Yunupingu’s mother-in-law (the artist’s sister who recently passed away). The
sensitivities of this history have kept it within the Yolngu realm until the publication of An
Intruders Guide to East Arnhem Land.
Dhundhunga 2 Munungurr
1936–2013. Lived and worked Yirrkala, North-Eastern Arnhem Land, Northern Territory.
Buymarr people, Yirritja moiety, Wangurri clan
This woman was the first wife of important Djapu leader Wirilma Mununggurr (now deceased),
who was himself a scion of Djapu patriarch Wonggu. Her son Lirrpiya is a mainstay of Djapu
ceremonial and political life to this day. Wirilma's 15 children and his role as grandfather of the
landowning Rirratjingu meant that family life was dominated by the ceremonial calendar. Her
father Bulambi 1 of the Wangurri had 12 children and his second wife Gawu, a daughter of
Wonggu, was mother to both Dhundhunga and Gatjil (deceased, former head of the Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander Commission). His son Australian Football League player Nathan
Djerrkura is therefore her nephew.
Noongar Doll Makers
Launched 1994/2010, Narrogin, Western Australia.
Bringing together Noongar women from the Narrogin and Pingelly communities in the Southern
Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, the Noongar Doll Makers originated in a series of dollmaking workshops led by textile artist Nalda Searles and Aboriginal artist Pantjiti Mary McLean
in 1994.
In 2010, CAN WA after being strongly involved in these Wheatbelt communities, re-established
the project with Searles and artist Cecile Williams. The women who participated in the
workshops, held every two months, had strong memories of their own grandmothers, aunties
and mothers making dolls during the earlier project and wanted the opportunity to continue the
practice. These workshops soon grew into weekly community gatherings driven by storytelling,
doll making and family connections.
Developing a partnership with the Western Australian Museum in Perth, CAN WA worked with
Aboriginal artist and curator Sharyn Egan to present the exhibition Yarns of the Heart: Noongar
Dolls from the Southern Wheatbelt in 2011.
Noongar Doll Makers works have been acquired by major collections including the National
Gallery of Australia, the Western Australian Museum and the University of Wollongong Art
Collection.
CAN WA is a not-for-profit community arts and cultural development organisation
founded in the early 1980s that works to inspire and mobilise socially disadvantaged
communities to creatively express their unique stories through a diversity of art mediums.
Laurie Nilsen
Born 1953, Roma, Queensland. Lives and works Brisbane.
Manadandanji people
Trained in graphic art and working across range of mediums including drawing, painting and
sculpture, Laurie Nilsen is widely known for his sculptural works using barbed wire which
engage with cultural, political and environmental debates and ideas. While much of Nilsen’s
work addresses issues that directly impact on the lives of Aboriginal people, he also recognises
the universality of such concerns.
In the early 1990s Nilsen became a founding member of the Campfire Group Artists, becoming
notable for being one of the first ‘urban’ Aboriginal artists whose work was collected by the
National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. Today Nilsen is an active member of the proppaNOW
collective in Brisbane that also includes artists Vernon Ah Kee, Tony Albert, Richard Bell,
Megan Cope, Jennifer Herd and Gordon Hookey.
Nilsen is an important mentor to younger artists through his artwork and as a lecturer in
contemporary Australian Indigenous art at Griffith University in Brisbane.
He was the recipient of the 24th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art
Award for sculpture in 2007. His work is held in numerous private and public collections,
including the Australian Museum, Sydney, and the National Museum of Australia, Canberra.
Alison Page
Born 1974, Sydney. Lives and works Coffs Harbour, New South Wales.
A descendant of the Walbanga and Wadi Wadi people of the Yuin nation, Alison Page is an
award-winning designer. She is Executive Officer of Saltwater Freshwater Arts Alliance, a
regional body for Aboriginal arts and culture on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales which
hosts a range of cultural programs including the annual Saltwater Freshwater Festival. Page is
also the Creative Director of the National Aboriginal Design Agency which collaborates with
Aboriginal artists to create unique design products.
Since 1998, Page has worked with various urban and rural Aboriginal communities in the
delivery of culturally appropriate architectural and design services in association with Merrima
Design. Exploring links between cultural identity, art and design, her work spans architecture,
interiors, jewellery and public art.
Page was named the Female Regional/ Rural Entrepreneur Manager of the Year in the NAB
Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards in 2013, and was also listed by Crikey as one of ‘the ten
women to watch in 2013’. She has been a panelist on ABC Television’s The New Inventors,
and is a regular commentator on arts and design.
Regina Pilawuk Wilson
Born 1948, Wudikapildyerr, Northern Territory. Lives and works Peppimenarti, Northern
Territory.
Ngan’gikurrungurr language
Together with her husband, Harold Wilson, the artist founded the Peppimenarti Community as
a permanent settlement for the Ngan’gikurrungurr people in the Daly River region, South-West
of Darwin in 1973.
Working across fibre art, painting and printmaking, Wilson’s artworks are based on
Ngan’gikurrungurr weaving practices. The artist also celebrates the cultural significance of
‘message sticks’ in her paintings, a traditional form of communication between communities.
Wilson was awarded the general painting category of the Telstra National Indigenous and
Torres Strait Islander Award in 2003.
The artist has participated in numerous exhibitions nationally and internationally, including:
Ancestral Modern: Australian Aboriginal Art from the Kaplan & Levi Collection, Seattle Art
Museum (2012); Out of Australia: prints and drawings from Sidney Nolan to Rover Thomas,
British Museum, London (2011); the 3rd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2009);
Floating Life: Contemporary Aboriginal Fibre Art, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern
Art, Brisbane (2009); and Dreaming their Way: Australian Aboriginal Women Painters at the
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC (2006). Wilson’s work has been
collected by major public and private collections in Australia, the US and the UK.
Desert Designs
Founded in the 1985 by art teachers Stephen Culley and David Wroth in collaboration with
Jimmy Pike (c. 1940–2002) while the artist was still serving a sentence in Fremantle Prison,
Desert Designs was an early pioneer in the application of Aboriginal art to textile design,
earning Pike international acclaim. His work with Desert Designs is currently touring Australia
as part of the exhibition Desert Psychedelic.
In 2012 Culley relaunched Desert Designs as a creative collective directed by Jedda- Daisy
Culley and Caroline Sundt-Wels, with new ready-to-wear collections employing digital prints of
Pike's original artworks and unique desert aesthetic showcased recently at Sydney’s Australian
Fashion Week.
Jimmy Pike
c. 1940–2002. Born East of Japingka, Western Australia. Later lived and worked Broome,
Western Australia. Died 2002, Derby, Western Australia.
Walmajarri people
Born in the Great Sandy Desert, Jimmy Pike spent his early life travelling through the arid
country with his family to different waterholes, according to the season. He learned all the skills
he needed to hunt and support himself on his country, and learnt traditional stories and
ceremonies. He joined one of the last groups to leave the desert and settle on cattle-stations in
the Kimberley during the 1950s.
While serving a sentence in Fremantle Prison during the 1980s, Pike began to draw, paint and
produce linocut prints in art classes run by Stephen Culley and David Wroth. After his release
in 1986, Pike began working with Desert Designs, creating designs for fabric, for use in clothing
and accessories. Pike set up an isolated camp in the desert, and was later joined by
psychologist Pat Lowe, whom he had met in Broome Prison. Later, the pair moved to Broome,
but made frequent trips back to their camp.
Pike was a key contributor to the 1997 painting Ngurrara II which depicted Walmajarri country
in the Great Sandy Desert; this was presented as evidence to the National Native Title Tribunal
in 1997.
Later in life, Pike and his work travelled to many international venues, and his works are held in
a number of major Australian public collections.
Tasmanian shell necklace makers
Bernice Condie
Born 1936, Launceston, Tasmania. Lives and works Launceston.
Bangana and Manalagena language
Dulcie Greeno
Born 1923, Cape Barren Island, Tasmania. Lives and works Launceston.
Palawa language
Corrie Fullard
Born 1931, Flinders Island, Tasmania. Lives and works Launceston.
Palawa language
Jeanette James
Born 1952, Launceston, Tasmania. Lives and works Launceston.
Palawa language
Tjanpi Desert Weavers
Established 1995 by Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara (NPY) Women’s Council;
NPY Lands, Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia.
Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara language groups
Tjanpi Desert Weavers is a not-for-profit Indigenous social enterprise of the NPY Women’s
Council, a resource, advocacy and support organisation for Aboriginal women living in remote
communities across the Western and Central deserts. It was created out of a need for
meaningful and culturally appropriate employment and to enable women to earn a regular
income from selling their fibre art.
Tjanpi (meaning ‘grass’) supports the production and marketing of baskets, sculptures and
seed jewellery made by more than 400 artists from 28 remote communities and builds on a
long tradition of working with natural fibres to create objects for daily and ceremonial use.
Aboriginal women regularly come together on country to collect grass, sculpt and weave, sing
and dance and keep culture strong while creating beautiful, intricate and expressive fibre art.
Made primarily from a combination of native desert grasses, seeds and feathers, commercially
bought raffia (sometimes dyed with native plants), string and wool, Tjanpi artworks are unique,
innovative and constantly evolving. Tjanpi has an extensive exhibition program and is
represented in national and international public and private art collections. In 2005 Tjanpi was
awarded the 22nd Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award for their
collaborative piece, Tjanpi grass Toyota, made by 18 women from Papulankutja.
Yarrenyty Arltere Artists
Founded 2000, Larapinta Valley Town Camp, Alice Springs, Northern Territory.
The art produced at Yarrenyty Arltere Artists, a not-for-profit and Aboriginal owned and
managed art centre in Alice Springs, is underpinned by the culture of the Western Arrernte
people, who have lived in the town camp for a number of generations. It speaks of country,
local flora and fauna, family, cattle-station and town camp life.
As well as being a peaceful hub for self-motivated people to work together to produce original
and highly marketable artworks, Yarrenyty Arltere Artists provides resources, support and
professional development opportunities for the artists, including access to computers, visits to
galleries, bush trips and interstate travel. Larapinta artists are also active in the development of
the art centre as a functioning enterprise, returning social and economic benefits to their
community.
Yarrenyty Arltere Artists have exhibited in galleries across Australia, and work by Larapinta
artists is held in a number of national public and private collections. The artists have also
participated in major art awards, including the Western Australian Indigenous Art Awards at the
Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth, and the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Art Award and Togart Contemporary Art Award in Darwin.
Yirrkala Printmakers
Dipililna Bukulatjpi/Marika
Born 1964, Yirrkala, Northern Territory. Lives and works Yirrkala.
Yirritja moiety, Warramiri clan
Djerrkngu Marika
Born 1945, Yirrkala, Northern Territory. Lives and works Yirrkala.
Yirritja moiety, Gumatj clan
Nyangungu Marawili
Born 1936, Yirrkala, Northern Territory. Lives and works Yirrkala.
Biranybirany people, Yirritja moiety, Madarrpa clan
Marrnyula Mununggurr
Born 1964, Yirrkala, Northern Territory. Lives and works Yirrkala and Wandawuy, Northern
Territory.
Dhuwa moiety, Djapu clan
Dundiwuy 2 Munungurr
Born 1951,Yirrkala, Northern Territory. Lives and works Yirrkala.
Dhuwa moiety, Djapu clan
Gundimulk Wanambi
Born 1957, Yirrkala, Northern Territory. Lives and works Yirrkala and Darwin.
Dhuwa moiety, Marrakulu clan
Mulkun Wirrpanda
Born 1947,Yirrkala, Northern Territory. Lives and works Yirrkala, Dhuruputjpi, Gangan and
Yilpara, Northern Territory.
Dhuwa moiety, Dhudi Djapu clan
Birrpunu Yunupingu
Born 1978, Yirrkala, Northern Territory. Lives and works Yirrkala.
Yirritja moiety, Gumatj clan
Djuwakan 2 (DJ) Marika
Born 1991, Nhulunbuy, North-Eastern Arnhem Land, Northern Territory.
Lives and works Yirrkala, Northern Territory.
Yolngu people, Dhuwa moiety, Rirratjingu clan
‘I grew up mainly at Rangi (beach camp) Yirrkala, the youngest boy in the large family of the
great Wandjuk Marika – my grandfather. My yaku (name) Djuwakan is named after Wandjuk
(this was one of his many names). My father was Mukatpuy, the youngest boy from Wandjuk.
My father’s brother was Mawalan 2 Marika, also an artist. When I was small, a little boy, I went
hunting with my favourite mukul (Aunty) Djanumbi Marika, first daughter of Wandjuk. I spent a
lot of time with Jenny Home (Wandjuk’s third wife) and their daughter Mayatili Marika.
I went to school at the Yirrkala Community Education Centre in Nhulunbuy, and studied
English, maths and more. I play Australian Rules Football for the Djarrak Football Team. We
won the grand final in 2009 but lost the final in 2010.
Wandjuk’s father was Mawalan 1 Marika. He is the landowner of this community, Yirrkala, and
he also owns the land called Yalangbara where the two sisters (Djang’kawu) spotted a gapu
milngurr (freshwater waterhole) right on the beach where the salty water is. This is the special
place for all moieties.’
Vicki West
Born 1960, Launceston, Tasmania. Lives and works Launceston.
Trawlwoolway people
An Aboriginal artist of the Trawlwoolway people from the North-East region of Tasmania, Vicki
West’s arts practice includes large-scale installations incorporating multiple elements, smallerscale sculptural works, textiles, painting and new media. She draws on traditional Tasmanian
Aboriginal cultural practices and materials to create contemporary artworks that explore and
celebrate cultural survival in the face of continuing colonial myths about the extinction of her
people, noting ‘we are still here’.
The artist has exhibited widely nationally and internationally, and is represented in the
collections of major institutions, including the Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney;
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston; and the Museum and Art Gallery of the
Northern Territory, Darwin.
The artist has also worked extensively at the community level, presenting workshops and
undertaking projects through schools, museums and at festivals and conferences, both within
Tasmania and nationally. This decade she has undertaken numerous public art installations
including for Launceston’s Streets Alive Youth Arts Festival, Marion Bay’s The Falls Music &
Art Festival and Sydney’s Taronga Zoo. West was part of Australia’s representation at the
Festival of Pacific Arts in 2012, and is a featured artist in the NITV television series Colour
Theory with Richard Bell.