By JESSE GRAHAM
ART from Australia’s Top End will be on display in Yarra Glen for two months when the Tiwi Ochre exhibition opens at Art at Linden Gate.
Tiwi Ochre features more than 30 handmade pieces created by Tiwi artists on Melville Island in the Northern Territory on a number of different mediums.
“There’s canvases, carvings, works on paper and some prints as well,” Art at Linden Gate gallery director, Reggie Clark, told the Mail.
Ms Clarke said that Tiwi art differed from mainland Australia’s Indigenous art, in that ochre is still used for their art, as well as crosshatching designs and prominent animal figures, such as birds.
“They do a lot of crosshatching and dots, not necessarily to tell a story, but based on their body paint that they use for ceremonies,” she said.
The exhibition features works from several Tiwi artists including Kitty Kantilla, Aileen Henry, Freda Warlipini and Harold Porkalari, among others.
Ms Clark said that her parents, who ran the gallery before her, had run exhibitions with Tiwi pieces in the past, and that she decided to follow suit.
“My parents … they went up to the Tiwi Islands a few times,” she said.
“They picked up a few pieces there, they spent time with the local people, and so I thought it was about time I did one.
“I went up there a couple of months ago with my husband, and we spent the day with the Tiwi Island Aboriginal people.”
She said the exhibition would fill the walls of the gallery for the official opening on Saturday 11 July, which runs from 2-4pm.
The Tiwi Ochre exhibition will be held until 31 August.
For more information, visit www.artatlindengate.com, call 9730 1861 or visit the gallery at 899 Healesville-Yarra Glen Road.
