FireWorks Gallery is very excited to announce that the exhibition WELCOME TO THOMPSON ST! which comprises almost 40 works by Laurie Nilsen, Rosella Namok, Tommy Watson and Ronnie Tjampitjinpa will open this Saturday. The event will run all day at the new warehouse space in Bowen Hills. Laurie will officially open the exhibition at 2pm. Other local artists will be present throughout the day. The 25-year celebrations continue with champagne and a sausage sizzle from 12pm. This is the fifth home for FireWorks Gallery: George Street, CBD 1993-1995; Ann Street, Fortitude Valley 1995-2001; followed by Stratton Street 2002-2007 and later Doggett Street 2007-2018 (both in Newstead). Director Michael Eather comments that “the ongoing curatorial theme underpinning the gallery’s exhibition program and associated projects remains the desire to present artworks by Indigenous (remote and urban) and non-Indigenous artists alongside each other.” In 2003, Eather was listed in The Bulletin’s Arts & Entertainment Smart 100: They are the smartest, most creative and innovative people in Australia.
A selection of works exhibited by Laurie – (Manadandanji, born-Roma) – includes paintings, watercolours on paper and sculptures utilising rabbit traps and a mixed media timber cross. Mounted to the ground level ceiling is an impressive large-scale spider created with barbed wire and powder coated steel – I’m a widow by choice. Although most of the artist’s work tackles issues that concern Aboriginal people, Laurie recognises that these concerns also affect non-Aboriginal people. Another feature work, The Ten Goolburris (FW10924), is a blatant reference on Warhol’s Ten Marilyns, harking back to Laurie’s ongoing interest in exploring popular culture through Indigenous sensibilities.
Cairns-based Rosella (one of the prominent members of the Lockhart River ‘Art Gang’) successfully paints her stories as both small and large-scale works. The Stinging Rain (FW17525) imagery has become a powerful and evocative landscape arrangement for Rosella. After trowling layers of multi-coloured high gloss paints, Rosella allows some layers to dry and with the final wet coat she ‘whips’ the painted surface with long thin sticks thus creating the rhythmic patterns of the driving rain that are commonplace in the northern tropics. The Aboriginal Housing (FW17420) painting from the series New Villages or Community Houses is a contemporary response to subdivisions of the land in the artists Aboriginal home community of Lockhart River.
Alongside Laurie and Rosella, two desert artists are presented in the exhibition. Tommy, a senior Pitjantjatjara elder, depicts stories from both his mother’s and his grandfather’s country. The artists distinctive topographical paintings are highly textured with thickly dotted layers and bold colour combinations. Utanja 1 (FW14875) refers to a location of personal significance to the artist which he has visited. Ronnie’s Bushfire (FW17481) focuses on pure linear compositions which, whilst startlingly bold and simple, denote the fire moving swiftly through desert scrubland of mulga and spinifex bushes. Particular sites such as Lake Mackay or Lake McDonald are referred to in Ronnie’s paintings. The mapping within these works is conceptual, not actual. Rain Story (FW18282) is a limited-edition screen print on rag paper created from a painterly expression of the artist’s observations within his country. Rain clouds appear, with water hitting mountains and running down the sides to form soakages.
Since 1993, FireWorks Gallery has developed a national and international reputation for exhibiting and promoting artworks by some of Australia’s best contemporary artists with works being acquired by major collections – public, corporate and private. Alongside the exhibition, there are numerous artworks (mainly paintings, works on paper, sculptures) displayed throughout the gallery. The artists include Michael Nelson Jagamara & Imants Tillers (collaborations and individual works), Ian Waldron, Ben Somerville, George Hairbrush Tjungerrayi, Matthew Johnson, David Paulson, Miles Allen, Lyell Bary, Mickey Jampitjinpa Singleton, Walala Tjapaltjarri, Serena Bonson, Samson Bonson, Joanne Currie Nalingu, Alick Sweet, Fiona Omeenyo, Samantha Hobson, Michael Eather, Yvonne Mills-Stanley, Scott Redford, Jennifer Herd, Anthony Lister, as well as a large range of colourful small works by Warlukurlangu Artists.
Image: Rosella Namok Aboriginal housing I 2017 acrylic on canvas 75x50cm
