More information on the 15 Artists prize and exhibition can be found online here.
Robert Andrew, held within a voice, 2023
Rocks, burnt branches, shell, ochre, oxides, string, aluminium, and electromechanical components
Yawuru artist Robert Andrew’s work combines programmable machinery with earth pigments, ochres, and rocks to mine historical events and cultural knowledge that has been denied or distanced by the dominant paradigms of western culture. held within a voice articulates the intertwined relationship of language and Country by visualising the wavelengths of Yawuru Ngan-ga (Yawuru Language) with gradually evolving natural elements. Burnt branches, rocks, and shell are suspended on strings attached to custom-built mechanisms their choreography is based on intonations of spoken language. With each movement a new landscape of language is inscribed onto the gallery wall.
Photo courtesy of City of Moreton Bay. Photographed by Louis Lim. Images: Louis Lim
Image: Robert Andrew, between language and country, 2023. Exhibition: Dark Matters, 2023, Science Gallery. Photography: Alan Weedon, 2023. Image courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane.
2023 PICA Fundraiser
a connective reveal—moondang dandjoo koorliny, 2023
Ochre, oxides, and chalks on calcium carbonate. 60 x 40cm. Edition of 40 + 2 AP
Robert Andrew is a descendant of the Yawuru people. Yawuru Country is the lands and waters surrounding Rubibi (the town of Broome) area in the Kimberley Region, Western Australia. PICA is on the lands of the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation. Andrew consulted with Whadjuk Traditional Owner Elisha Jacobs-Smith who gifted language to this work. ‘moondang dandjoo koorliny’—everything moving together’
Andrew’s work often combines programmable machinery with earth pigments and language. a connective reveal—moondang dandjoo koorliny was formed using a mechanism that precisely projects water onto a prepared surface. The mechanism directed by language slowly etches back through stratums of white chalks into ochres and oxides. The ochre red flows from beneath the white surface and onto the stark black canvas—building new typographies reminiscent of the shifting landscape and moving waters of this Country. The gradual build-up and pooling of colours bring forward new stories informed by each mineral layer of the work.
2023 Wharf St Public Artwork
Digital Ceramic Print on Glass, Cast Bronze. Project Managed by Urban Art Projects, for the facade windows of the Australian Taxation Office, 152 Wharf St, Brisbane.
The distinctive horizontal forms on the windows of 152 Wharf Street are created with a custom-built painting armature that uses water to erode through stratums of white chalks into ochres and oxides. The gradual build-up and pooling of colours bring forward new stories and typographies informed by each mineral layer of the work. The organic lines envisage a timeline of history—alike the lines of stratification in sandstone, or nearby Brisbane Tuff typical to this area. These ancient knowledge systems embedded in the earth both record and shape our movement across Country.
‘Maiwar is a city-wide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander contemporary art exhibition on display around Brisbane during May 2017.
Maiwar is the traditional word used to refer to the waterway now known as the Brisbane River, making it a fitting name for this exhibition.’
‘Maiwar curators – BlakLash Collective
Freja Carmichael, Katina Davidson and Amanda Hayman are BlakLash Collective.
BlakLash are a newly established collective, developed out of our longstanding working relationships and identified need for culturally appropriate representation in the consultation, development and delivery of creative projects involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists.’ copied from Maiwar BCC
‘Residual Pathways (2013-2016)
Residual Pathways will be on display in Hutton Lane during Maiwar.
About the artwork
Residual Pathways are images that show the result of a mechanical palimpsest process, one that erodes and erases old historical colonial text using water to wash away and reveal what lies beneath. The layers of white chalk, ochres and red oxides mixed with the water bleed down the surfaces leaving residual pathways before settling and overlaying previous surfaces. These pathways connect with other rivers of water and ochres, slowly building to create these new images of tributaries and landscapes.’
Images coming soon.
Solid!
Moving out of Muteness – 2014
Ngan-ga – Language from the Yawuru People, Kimberley region, Western Australia.