Exhibitions Baluk Arts Reflecting Country, Recognising Self 7th January 2020 - 1st February 2020

CBD NEWS ARTICLE

This is a Baluk Arts group exhibition co-curated by Lisa Waup in collaboration with FLG.

This exhibition features the artists Lisa Waup, Gillian Garvie, Cassie Leatham, Beverley Meldrum and Nanette Shaw.

Reflecting Country, Recognising Self

The South Eastern region of Australia is an area rich in traditional expression and the women artists of Baluk Arts are ensuring the perseverance of a distinct, contemporary cultural aesthetic of the south east Victorian coast despite interventions that would strip traditional cultural practices away.
These contemporary women are the mothers of a rebirth of cultural making. These are the newest custodians of old crafts and ancient knowledge and they share it with the next generation, visitors, and the world, and often at great personal cost. These are women who have taken control of their destinies, and yet they wander a contested space.
This accumulation and metamorphosis of found materials bring Country first and foremost to our attention. Ghost nets and assorted beach refuse, shells discarded from long forgotten tropical holidays, recycled sterling silver, feathers, bones and other discovered contents are a plaintive call for conservation. To rehabilitate the land is to rehabilitate the soul.
This is an offered glimpse through the looking glass, as much as these pieces are works about Country they are about the Aboriginal women who have brought them into being. It is through reflecting Country and Ancestral heritage back into the contemporary life that they come to recognise themselves as one more link in a story hundreds of generations long.

Baluk Arts is an urban Aboriginal community arts centre making waves in the art world. Based in Mornington, Victoria. Baluk supports artistic, career and audience development for visual artists of the Bayside, Peninsula and greater Melbourne.

Baluk is a local Boonwurrung word meaning many or group of people and this reflects the diversity of our artists and their work. Our emerging and established artists hail from all over Australia and their art expressed their identity and cultural heritage in a contemporary context.

Through Baluk Arts, family groups and members of the stolen generation have reconnected with their culture and express their histories through strong artistic practice to support their cultural and creative wellbeing. Baluk Arts encourages community development, youth leadership, participation and interaction, and Indigenous governance through innovative arts practice.

Cassie Leatham
Healing Mat 978-19 2019
native grasses, assorted feathers
120cm x 120cm Acquired for the Medical History Museum, University of Melbourne

Cassie Leatham
Echidna Dish 193-18 2018
abalone shell, echidna quill, pipe clay
16cm x 15cm x 14cm

Cassie Leatham
Unearthed 62-19 2019
shell, bone midden and clay
16cm x 11cm x 10cm

Cassie Leatham
Weaved Coolamon with Digging Stick 119-18 2018
Flax, lomandra, natural raffia, raw raffia, ochre, wattle sap glue
45cm x 21cm x 11cm

Nanette Shaw
Bull Kelp Water Carrier 329-18 2018
bull kelp, tea tree, river reed
13cm x 13cm x 9.5cm

Nanette Shaw
Bull Kelp Water Carrier 335-18 2018
bull kelp, tea tree, river reed
12cm x 9cm x 8 cm

Nanette Shaw
Bull Kelp Water Carrier 186-18 2018
bull kelp, tea tree, river reed
12cm x 13cm x 14cm ACQUIRED FOR THE BLUESTONE COLLECTION

Nanette Shaw
Bull Kelp Water Carrier 979-19 2019
bull kelp, tea tree, river reed
11cm x 18cm x 16

Beverley Meldrum
Fractured Ground 135-18 2018
air dried clay, ochre, lomandra and emu feathers
37cm x 39cm x 10cm

Beverley Meldrum
Miniature Kelp Basket 66-17 2017
kelp, tea tree
17cm x 7cm x 3cm

Beverley Meldrum
The Seed 627-17 2017
lomandra, emu feathers, air dry clay, ochre, wire and wool
35cm x 28cm x 32cm

Beverley Meldrum
Washed Up 151-18 2018
Ghost net, Bailing Twine, shark vertebrae, fishing line and kelp
19cm x 17cm x 15cm

Gillian Garvie
Because of Them I Can 187-18 2018
alpaca wool, cotton, flax and wood
23cm x 22cm x 10cm

Gillian Garvie
Woven Vessel 950-19 2019
mixed media
12cm x 4cm x 28cm

Gillian Garvie
Community, 1121-19 2019
alpaca, stones, cotton thread
110cm x 70cm

Gillian Garvie
Flood 124-18 2018
flax, alpaca, wool, paper bark wood
22cm x 22cm x 30 cm ACQUIRED FOR THE BLUESTONE COLLECTION

Gillian Garvie
Home 113-18 2018
human hair, string, alpaca wool, lomandra, flax, cotton, emu and crow feathers
10cm x 9cm x 8cm