Americans to receive lessons in Noongar art and culture - 8 July 2008
An indigenous artist from Bunbury has flown to America as part of a push to strengthen ties between the New York and Noongar art worlds.
Troy Bennell, along with Katanning’s Athol Farmer, will spend the next two weeks delivering lessons in Noongar art and culture at the State University of New York at New Paltz.
The two artists will also present a collaborative exhibition featuring their works and those of Bunbury man Graham “Swag” Taylor.
The trip is part of a push by Austrade, the South West Development Commission and Department of Industry and Resources to increase the profile of Noongar art in New York.
Though oceans apart, an association between the New York and Noongar art worlds began with the discovery at New York’s Colgate University of long lost artworks produced by Carrolup Mission children in the 1940s and 1950s.
Drawings by children from the Carrolup Mission, including abstracts and landscapes, were donated to Colgate University’s Picker Art Gallery in the late 1960s by former student Herbert Mayer.
At the time the university gallery didn’t have a full-time curator and the drawings were stored away.
The importance of the Colgate collection was only brought to light in the spring of 2004 by visiting Australian lecturer Howard Morphy who found the drawings in boxes at the gallery.
Since then, the Noongar and New York art worlds have benefited from a series of cultural exchanges, including journeys by Colgate University’s anthropology, geography and visual art students to Western Australia for research and field visits.
Austrade TradeStart South West officer Mat Lewis, who works with the South West Development Commission to promote the South West as a region of international excellence, said the trip is likely to provide substantial benefits for Noongar artists in the South West and Great Southern.
“These organised events attract interest from major New York art dealers and provide continuing opportunities for Noongar artists by establishing international connections for them and their cultural and artistic communities,” he said.
Mr Bennell, an award-winning artist who wants to take Noongar to the world, said the landscape paintings he will exhibit in New York contained an important environmental message.
“The Noongar way is to respect the land,” he said.
“If you respect the land it will provide for you in one way or another.”
The trip has been made possible by the South West Development Commission, Department of Industry and Resources, Austrade, Jon Doust, Hon. Matt Benson MLC, Ravensthorpe Nickel BHP and Singapore Airlines.
…ENDS
Media contact:
Teneille Watson