artbeat

COUNTRY AND WESTERN: LANDSCAPE RE-IMAGINED, 1988 – 2003

Gazing across the nation’s landscape, artists have referenced the past, the future and the ever present to identify and give a sense of place to the space they occupy. The experience can be grounded in the physical reality of a site, along with its deep, often-elusive spiritual associations. Country & Western: landscape re-imagined brings into focus the contrasting insights and cultural imperatives, both Indigenous (Country) and non-Indigenous (Western), that have given shape and substance to our evolving attitudes and perceptions of the national landscape over the past 25 years. To grasp an appreciation of the enterprise, a timeframe was established. As a consequence, the works assembled for Country & Western are all post-bicentennial pieces.

In traversing the Australian landscape through a disparate body of work by a significant group of 39 artists working in various media, the exhibition reaffirms the impact landscape exerts on the national psyche. In recent decades, the world has come to accept Indigenous art as the authentic, defining image of the Australian landscape - a landscape famously re-invigorated by its original custodians. In the early 1970s, the Papunya Tula painting movement transformed the direction of Australian art, in particular, Australian painting.

With the focus back on the national landscape in all its complexity, now is the time to assess the relevance of western landscape traditions in response to the Indigenous vision, and search out common ground (if any). As well, the vexed issues