At the official exhibition opening on Saturday 20 August, Shepparton Art Museum Rupert Myer AO awarded the 2016 Indigenous Ceramic Art Award to Gallery Kaiela Artists, Jack Anselmi and Cynthia Hardie for their collaborative work Midden.
The Yorta Yorta winners were selected from this year’s ICAA finalists by judges Tom Mosby, CEO, Koorie Heritage Trust Inc; Kimberley Moulton, Senior Curator South Eastern Australian Collections, Melbourne Museum; and Dr Rebecca Coates, Director, Shepparton Art Museum.
The judges were looking for a work that was innovative, challenging, exciting and would intrigue while exploring and extending the medium of ceramics:
“The 2016 ICAA showcased an outstanding calibre of entrants reflecting the sophistication of Indigenous ceramic art practice around the nation. This made judging difficult, requiring a very considered approach.
While the award is a ceramic award, it is also an Indigenous ceramic award. This meant that works needed to extend the ceramic medium, and also reflect the artist’s perspective as an Indigenous person and their cultural expression. The ceramic medium needed to enhance the telling of this story. Each of the works in this year’s award tells a unique story that is very personal to each of the artists, arts collectives and the community they come from, generously sharing aspects of their lives, identity, country and creation stories.
The winning work was selected for its ambition, extension of the artist’s practice, the way it extends the medium of ceramic and importantly for the cultural story it presents. Yorta Yorta artists Jack Anselmi and Cynthia Hardie’s immersive installation, Midden, reveals the different ways that ceramics can be manipulated and extended. The layering of history and content is exposed through a range of ceramic forms: buff raku and ceramic grog, delicate and intricate porcelain bones and shells, and rough hand-shaped balls made from clay collected from the Kaiela (Goulburn) River banks. The more you look and reflect on this work, the more it reveals. It is a statement and testament of knowledge and connection to country that weaves the past into the present, gathering communities, families and culture, and leaving a legacy for the future.”
The ICAA is a $20,000 acquisitive award that celebrates and supports the rich and diverse use of the ceramic medium by Indigenous artists and acknowledges the special industry of ceramic art.
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM)
Until 25 September, 2016
Victoria
Cynthia Hardie, a Yorta Yorta woman from Victoria and Jack Anselmi, a Yorta Yorta man from Victoria in their studio at Gallery Kaiela
Jack Anselmi and Cynthia Hardie as a collaborative group are the winners of the 2016 Indigenous Ceramic Art Award
Photograph: Belinda Briggs