National Gallery of Victoria opens Visual Music: Indigenous Masters of Light and Colour an exhibition on view from August 10, that explores the work of eight senior Indigenous women who only emerged as artists from the 1990s onwards.
This arresting display of work from the NGV’s permanent collection juxtaposes eleven audacious paintings by eight singular artists whose paintings have been informed by their profound knowledge and cultural memory of Country and its sanctity.
The combination of unexpected colours, gestural markings and spontaneous textures runs counter to the stylistic tendency evident in many parts of Indigenous Australia towards subdued tonality and finely nuanced abstraction.
Maestros of Colour and Light – Monet & Indigenous artists will draw comparisons between the Indigenous artists featured in Visual Music and the father of French Impressionism, Claude Monet, as artists who were radical risk takers that defied expectations of landscape paintings. www.ngv.vic.gov.au