The Broken Hill City Art Gallery is set to debut a captivating new art exhibition this Friday. Kathy Graham, the gallery and museum manager, is eager to display a wide array of art that spans various mediums. The exhibit includes classical glasswork and pottery alongside captivating interactive digital displays.
“We’re excited to be opening the gallery on Friday night (November 3) from 6 pm to present the JamFactory ICON Kunmanara Carroll: Ngaylu Nyanganyi Ngura Winki (I Can See All Those Places) exhibition, which will run until February 4,” Ms Graham told the Barrier Truth.
The ICON exhibition by JamFactory is an annual event that honours the work of leading visual artists from South Australia who are renowned for their craft-based creations.
The late Kunmanara Carroll, an esteemed Luritja/Pintupi/Pitjantjatjara artist, is the focal point of the exhibition. With a tenure at Ernabella Arts in Pukatja on the APY Lands, Carroll was devoted to the transmission of cultural heritage, drawing incessant inspiration from his paternal homeland. His legacy encompasses an impressive range of paintings and ceramic sculptures.
The exhibition is a major retrospective, featuring an extensive selection of Carroll’s last works in ceramics and on canvas. The display is augmented by a tapestry from the Australian Tapestry Workshop.
“I’m really excited for this one because this is a touring exhibition through the JamFactory in South Australia,” Ms Graham said.
“Kunmanara Carroll was an incredibly talented Indigenous artist who used multi mediums – it’s predominantly ceramics works, stoneware works, which is really exciting because we don’t get many ceramic exhibitions come through – and we’ve got canvas works and a tapestry, which is incredibly contemporary, so we feel honoured to have this exhibition here now until February.”
While chatting with Ms Graham, the Barrier Truth had the pleasure of interviewing Sydney artist Si Yi Shen. Her vibrant, interactive display, entitled Imagining Terrains, is on view in Gallery 2.
Drawing on her time in Broken Hill, Si Yi Shen’s exhibit is a personal narrative shaped by her encounters and the bonds formed during her residency with the Broken Hill Open Cut Commission in 2022.
Si Yi Shen’s exhibition offers a visual narrative of Broken Hill’s present-day terrain while also venturing into speculative representations of its future through animated visuals and augmented reality pieces. She observes a distinct variation in this year’s palette compared to last.
“The colours last year around the region were crisper with all the rain and this year the colours seem softer with more yellows. I’d never seen a cloud with a flat bottom before – the clouds here are very mesmerising so clouds are a feature, but my art is more about the people who are building this landscape together in a collective effort.”
To see artworks by Kunmanara Carroll, visit https://nga.gov.au/publications/ceremony/kunmanara-carroll
PICTURES: Si Yi Shen presents ‘Imagining Terrains’ at Broken Hill City Art Gallery, melding animated visuals with augmented reality to explore Broken Hill’s changing landscapes and communal narratives. MELANIE GATES
