‘I kind of hope that history may see me as some sort of bridge between…cultures’ Lin Onus 1990
Jan Manton Art and Mossgreen Gallery Melbourne are excited to announce the first international exhibition dedicated to leading Australian contemporary indigenous artist, Lin Onus (1948-1996).
Yinya Wala (Light/Water) will feature 15 extraordinary works by one of Australia’s most successful and influential Indigenous artists.
Commenting on Lin Onus, Frances Lindsay AM, Director of Australian Art, Mossgreen notes, ‘his work reminds us of the beauty, but also the fragility of the land and our relationship to it, as well as our relationship with each other, and in so doing his art resonates beyond Australia to the international arena.”
The centrepiece of the exhibition is a 1994 work The Riddle of the Koi, a vast and stunning diptych which focuses on the beauty of fish and lily pads as one of Lin Onus’s key themes. His sensitive and sophisticated blending of traditional Indigenous design and Western art aesthetics created a unique and powerful voice that resonated across a wide cross-cultural and political arena, both within Australia and internationally.
Over the past 40 years much attention has been focused on the visionary work of Indigenous artists working in remote and traditional communities throughout Australia that commenced with the emergence of the Western Desert Art Movement at Papunya, Central Australia in 1971-72. However, by the 1980s another revolution was taking place with urban-based artists of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ancestry, such as Lin Onus, who were empowered by the perspective of having grown up in a metropolitan environment and were conscious of both their Indigenous heritage and the urgency of reclaiming their culture. Onus accomplished this in a career that was shortened by his untimely death at the age of 47, with an oeuvre that is compelling in its auratic capture of aspects of the natural world.
Onus was also a major advocate for Aboriginal rights, chairing the Aboriginal Arts Board from 1989 to 1992, and was a co-founder of the Aboriginal Arts Management Association in 1990. He was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1993 in recognition of his service to Aboriginal welfare and to the arts.
The exhibition opened in London at Messum’s on June 28, before travelling to Melbourne (August 4-28), Brisbane (September 4-29) and Sydney (October 8-30). Prices range from $35,000 to $380,000.
Image illustrated: Riddle of the Koi (dyptych), 1994, 221 x 442 cm
