The winners of the ‘Western Australian Indigenous Art Awards 2015’ have been announced and the exhibition has opened. The awards celebrate the scope, diversity and excellence of art from all corners of Indigenous Australia. One of the richest Indigenous art prizes in the country, it is split into: the Western Australian Indigenous Art Awards of $50,000, the Western Australian Artist Award of $10,000 and the People’s Choice Award of $5,000.
Megan Cope won the Western Australian Indigenous Art Award with her multi-layered video work, The Blaktism 2014. Selected from the 118 nominations, received from across Australia, the judges felt that, “it was a sophisticated and complex work with a strong social and political resonance conveyed in a highly effective way through its pop culture energy.”
In The Blaktism 2014, Cope places herself at the center of an intervention to turn her into an ‘acceptable aborigine’. The video challenges ideas of symbolism, associated with the state and church, as well as stereotypical views of Indigenous culture through the use of humour.
Eunice Yunurupa Porter won the Western Australian Artist Award of $10,000. A senior Ngaanyatjarra women, Porter’s work documents the history of her own community. Lyrical and evocative her paintings play with scale and add texture through found objects.
The winners and finalists exhibition is on until October and voting is open for The People’s Choice Award, which will be announced Monday 28 September, 2015.
Art Gallery of Western Australia
Until 12 October, 2015
Western Australia
www.artgallery.wa.gov.au
Megan Cope, The Blaktism (still), 2014, single-channel HD video, edition of 5, 8:04 minutes
Courtesy the artist and THIS IS NO FANTASY, Melbourne
Eunice Yunurupa Porter, Collecting the wood in winter, 2014, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 76.2 x 76.2cm
Courtesy the artist and Warakurna Artists