This year’s fair will include a booth dedicated solely to First Nations Australian art, from bark paintings to works by Emily Kam Kngwarray.
In a first for TEFAF Maastricht, visitors to this year’s fair will encounter a booth dedicated entirely to Australia’s First Nations art. The show is set to feature over a dozen artists, working from the 1960s to present day, providing a broad picture of the contemporary Indigenous Australian art movement. The Indigenous people of Australia have had an artistic tradition for thousands of years, with rock art dated to around 30,000 years ago. What will be seen in the booth, though — from eucalyptus bark paintings, collected in the mid-20th century, to the canvases of Emily Kam Kngwarray and Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri — is adaptation and innovation, as artists began painting for an audience and embracing new mediums.
By Will Higginbotham