Post on 13-Apr-2018
Back at school
Consider the following activities:
• Explain which work of art you most enjoyed/connected to and why. Describe what you saw, how it made you feel.
• Describe how the artists’ ideas and themes connect to their use of material/s.
• If you could meet one of the artists, what would you ask about his or her work?
• Write a review or summary for someone who has not been to the exhibition. Identify the curators’ key ideas and explain how
several of the artists have responded through their works of art.
• Discuss the role of art galleries in challenging our understanding of art by displaying contemporary works. Has this exhibition
changed your view or understanding of what art is?
• On a map, show where each artist came from, and where he or she lives now.
• List the ways by which some of the artists in HEARTLAND have incorporated history, both individual and community, into their art.
Research your own history of living in South Australia. Present your research as a poster, speech, photomontage or painting.
• Why is glass considered an important material for artists? What are its properties? Research the glassmaking techniques of Fairclough
and Scarce. Compare and contrast their works in terms of making. Visit the Jam Factory to see glass being made.
• Think about the diversity of materials used by artists in the exhibition. Which of the materials used by artists for their HEARTLAND
works would you most like to work with, and why?
We invite teachers to submit images of student works made in response to either the Making activities in this resource or as a result of a
HEARTLAND Studio experience. Upload works to the ‘Share Your HEARTLAND’ Gallery at: http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/share/
Before your visit
Before you visit the Gallery to see HEARTLAND, develop a range of questions that will help you define the qualities of contemporary
art. Use your questions to help in your response to the exhibition.
Some ideas to get you started:
• Who made the work? (age, gender, life experiences …)
• What is visible in the work? (materials used, composition, lighting, colour …)
• How was the work made? (videoed, drawn, constructed …)
• Why was the work made? (fun, to tell a story, to right a wrong, to convey a message …)
• When was the work made? (This may give a clue to significant events, to politics, and to environmental or social issues …)
• Who is viewing the art? (Does gender, ethnicity, age, culture, make a difference to the response?)
Some artists say that the viewer contributes to, or even completes, a work by contributing his or her own personal reflections,
experiences and opinions. What do you think?
introduction
WelcoMe To heaRTland: conTeMpoRaRy aRT FRoM souTh ausTRalia.
HEARTLAND includes works of art by 45 artists working across and beyond the state of South Australia - from the Riverland, desert,
coast and city. The artists included in HEARTLAND all have a special relationship with South Australia. Many have always lived and made
art here, while for others their experiences in South Australia have inspired their art making practice. The exhibition presents many
mediums including painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, installation, printmaking, sound and the moving image.
The title of the exhibition HEARTLAND proposes an expansion
of the genre of landscape, one that includes the geographic, the
political, the ecological, the immaterial and even the spiritual. The
exhibition hopes to generate new ways of thinking about who
and where we are.
The HEARTLAND artists include artists from Amata in the
Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands (Hector
Burton, Steven Burton, Wawiriya Burton, Unrupa Rhonda Dick,
Maureen Douglas, Ronnie Douglas, Willy Kaika, Nyurpaya Kaika-
Burton, Tjampawa Katie Kawiny, Anistene Ken, Frida Ken, Ilawanti
Ungkutjuru Ken, Ray Ken, Sandra Ken, Senena Ken, Sylvia Ken,
Tjungkara Ken, Rene Kulitja, Paniny Mick, Barbara Moore, Mary
Pan, Kukika Tiger, Rini Tiger, Kantanari Nancy Tjilya, Mick Wikilyiri,
Nita Williamson, Ruby Williamson, Susan Williamson, Stanley
Windy, Yaritji Young), Kate Breakey, Kim Buck, James Darling and
Lesley Forwood, artists from Ernabella (Niningka Lewis and
Tjunkaya Tapaya), Wendy Fairclough, Stewart MacFarlane, Ian
North, Annalise Rees, Chris De Rosa, Yhonnie Scarce, Paul Sloan,
Angela Valamanesh, Hossein Valamanesh and Amy Joy Watson.
HEARTLAND is curated by Associate Curator of Australian and
Indigenous Art, Nici Cumpston and Project Curator, Lisa Slade.
HEARTLAND provides a national platform for the exhibition of
work by living South Australian artists.
The learning activities presented in this HEARTLAND education
resource are designed to encourage students to take a closer
look at selected works of art and to explore the key concepts
associated with the HEARTLAND exhibition.
Information for this resource has been derived from the
accompanying HEARTLAND exhibition publication with
the support of Art Gallery of South Australia curators Nici
Cumpston and Lisa Slade. Education resource support was also
provided by Jenny Cunningham, Anne Keast, Lucy Macdonald and
Ann Noble.
Curriculum-focused learning programs for early years to senior
students and for teachers are created and managed by Mark
Fischer, a specialist DECD teacher based at the Art Gallery of
South Australia.
audio TouR
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to our
scan the QR code
www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/aT
or visit
Wendy fairclough
Wendy Fairclough was born in New Zealand in 1958 and
emigrated to Australia when she was aged eighteen. She has
made South Australia her home.
Fairclough creates glass sculptures to tell stories about life,
culture and the environment. She takes inspiration from the
ordinary domestic objects in our homes to illustrate the comfort
and familiarity of place. These objects – brooms, basins, pots and
pans – are often ignored because of their commonplace nature.
Fairclough draws attention to these familiar objects, now re-
created in fragile, light-filled glass, by arranging them carefully
and forcing us to see them in a new way, to acknowledge our
connection to their use and value. She creates her sculptures,
using a variety of processes, including glass-casting and glass-
blowing. The casting process involves the use of positive and
negative moulds made from using rubber, silica, wax and
plaster. Her work also involves cleaning, grinding, polishing and
sandblasting.
For many of us, our homes form part of our heartland. They
are places we go to when we seek comfort or connection with
family and friends.
Responding
Fairclough’s works of art are placed at intervals throughout the
exhibition. Describe how their positioning in a gallery setting
draws our attention to the artist’s ideas and processes.
Create a list of familiar domestic items in your home, items that
remind you of life with your family. How might these objects be
different from those of other students? Imagine a combination of
these familiar objects made of glass and arranged as a sculpture.
View the artist video and discuss Fairclough’s studio space
and her process of making art with a classmate. Focus on
the arrangement of the space, the materials you can see, the
equipment the artist uses and any visual imagery in her studio.
Making
One of Fairclough’s artistic influences has been the twentieth-
century Italian painter and printmaker Giorgio Morandi, who
featured ordinary household items – pots, pans, vases, jugs – in
his still life works. Research more about Fairclough and Giorgio
Morandi and compare and contrast their works, including their
use of everyday objects and their chosen media.
Draw or paint a group of domestic items as a still life. … We create order, we clean … it is important to me to speak about what we have in common with other cultures, rather than what is different.
Wendy FaiRclough
‘
’ Wendy Fairclough, born Wanganui, Aotearoa/ New Zealand 1958, Quiet Industry, 2010, Canberra, and Aldgate, South Australia, cast lead crystal, wooden bench, 60.0 x 164.0 x 34.0 cm; © courtesy the artist, photo: Grant Hancock
chris de rosa
Horseshoe Bay in Port Elliott is Chris De Rosa’s home and
inspiration. The artist has daily contact with the sea, where she
swims and collects remnants of ocean plants and animals. These
form the basis of her works, which celebrate her wonder at their
beauty.
De Rosa’s Italian heritage and family life also play an important
part in the making of her art.
There is an Italian tale that tells of a young Venetian seafarer
who brought his beloved a rare piece of salt-encrusted seaweed
from a Venetian lagoon. To preserve its beauty, the woman took
a needle and thread and carefully copied it, tracing out the
seaweed’s design – and thus lace was ‘invented’.
De Rosa works with paper, perforating and tearing it to create
lace-like forms.
In creating Artificial Kingdom, De Rosa worked on large sheets of
thick Magnani paper and used a variety of techniques to create
organic forms, including etching, inkjet printing, colour staining
and perforating the paper. The forms are infused with rich colour
and their scale suggests something surreal.
Responding
Look closely at De Rosa’s Artificial Kingdom and watch the artist
video. Discuss her processes of making art with a classmate.
Research other artists, such as the Surrealists, who created
works by exploring dreams and the imagination, in particular, the
frottage works of Max Ernst and James Gleeson.
Gerry Wedd mentions the Wunderkammer in his essay about
Chris De Rosa. Research the Wunderkammer. Where and when
were they found?
Making
De Rosa’s works suggest forms from another world. Using her
works as inspiration and the Surrealists’ ‘automatic drawing
techniques’ such as frottage, make a collaborative surreal
seascape on large sheets of paper. Create a display for your
classroom wall.
detail: Chris De Rosa, born Adelaide 1959, Artificial Kingdom, 2013, Port Elliot, South Australia, inkjet print, etching, pigment stain on perforated Magnani paper, dimensions variable; © courtesy the artist photo: Grant Hancock
de Rosa’s studio is its own Wunderkammer of sorts, with walls strewn with collections of sponges, seaweeds and other littoral detritus.
geRRy Wedd
‘
’
steWart Macfarlane
Adelaide’s Stewart MacFarlane has an established forty-year
painting career. He was born in Adelaide in 1953, which means
South Australia is his home territory. Although his urban studio is
close to the city, MacFarlane began work on these HEARTLAND
paintings further north in the Flinders Ranges, where he made
quick paintings, en plein air, of his responses to northern towns
and landscapes. Back in his studio, these small paintings became
the basis for more complex large-scale paintings.
MacFarlane’s art explores emotional tensions, and questions
the dynamics between people, culture and the land. He creates
situations that are not necessarily explained in his works. We
wonder about the identity of his figures, and about what is
occurring between them.
The work Transcontinental shows the main street in the town of
Quorn. A young girl stands in the middle of the road, cradling
what looks to be a crow. Her disturbed expression makes us
wonder what has happened.
In creating his works, MacFarlane added studio-based figures
into his landscapes; the figures were developed in life drawing
sessions in Adelaide. For his painting Heartland, the artist chose
Aboriginal people to sit as models. This choice was inspired by a
chance meeting in the Flinders Ranges with an Aboriginal family
travelling together in a minibus. We wonder who this man and
woman are. Are they related? Are they on their own country, or
are they tourists from elsewhere?
MacFarlane paints in a contemporary figurative style. He makes
light and shadow more obvious by placing complementary
colours next to each other, thus giving dimension and roundness
to both figures and landscape. In Transcontinental vibrant blues
and tans show bright sunlight and shadows on the young girl’s
skin. Complementary colours are also evident in the distant
mountains of Heartland, where MacFarlane uses sharply defined
purple shadows against yellow sunlit ranges. Can you see the ♥
in the landscape?
Responding
Look closely at the figures. Describe what you think is happening
in Transcontinental. If this were a scene from a film, what would
the film be called?
Research American figurative painters such as artist Alex Katz
and Chuck Close.
Read the comment by Nicholas Jose. How does this relate to
MacFarlane’s painting Transcontinental?
Making
Using photographs, tell a story about an event in your heartland,
either past or present.
Use oil pastels to make a figure composition in the environment.
Like MacFarlane, use complementary colours.
Stewart MacFarlane, born Adelaide 1953, Heartland, 2013, Adelaide, oil on canvas; © courtesy the artist and Australian Galleries, Melbourne and Sydney, photo: Saul Steed
What’s going on? stewart MacFarlane’s scenarios contain both promise and menace in an uneasy mix of possibility and almost lost opportunity.
nicholas Jose
‘
’
JaMes darling and lesley forWood
James Darling and Lesley Forwood moved to their property
in the southeast of South Australia in the nineteen seventies.
The land there had suffered severe degradation, and they have
worked to regenerate it while creating a sustainable farm.
‘Creativity and originality are basic to [our] farming. You can’t
leave art out of anything’, they state. Their property is both the
inspiration behind their works of art, and the source of the raw
materials for their sculptural installations. The landscape created
for HEARTLAND uses the roots of an arid-land eucalypt, the
Mallee Gum. Three-and-a-half tonnes of mallee roots have been
arranged by hand in the Gallery.
River to Ocean was created to draw attention to the fragile
ecosystems of the Lower Lakes and The Coorong. In this
installation Darling and Forwood have re-created the River
Murray’s exit system to its mouth. Mallee roots represent the
land the Murray passes through, and coloured salts reflect the
varying degrees of salinity in the waterways.
The artists want to raise awareness of the importance of
maintaining the environmental equilibrium of this vulnerable part
of our state.
Responding
Darling and Forward have raised environmental issues about
their home in this installation. Explain how the materials
represent this changing environment.
Debate the claim that the most relevant art effects social change.
Making
Darling and Forwood, like other artists in the exhibition, have
used natural found materials from their heartland to create
their works. Using natural materials from your heartland, such as
stones, twigs, nuts or seeds, create a work of art that expresses
your feelings about an environmental issue that concerns you or
your community.
Compare and contrast River to Ocean with a work by Andy
Goldsworthy, Nikolaus Lang, Robert Smithson or Christo.
detail: James Darling, born Melbourne 1946, Lesley Forwood, born Tailem Bend, South Australia 1950, Country, 2011, Adelaide, 3.5 tonnes mallee roots, 11.2 x 4.7 x 0.4 m; © courtesy the artist and Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide, photo: courtesy Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide
The most relevant art effects social change. it serves as a reminder and reinforcement of the social, political, or, in the case of darling and Forwood, the environmental structures that underpin life on earth.
FeliciTy FenneR
‘
’
tJala artists froM aMata
Tjala Arts is the name of a community of aboriginal men and
women who connect with their country through art. They live
in Amata in the far northwest of South Australia. Three hundred
Aboriginal people live in Amata, and Pitjantjatjara is their first
language. The word ‘Tjala’ means honey ant, and is also the name
of the art centre. By using contemporary art materials, including
acrylic paint and canvas, the artists continue to draw upon and
express their ancestral creation stories.
The exhibition includes paintings made by several artists who
have worked together collaboratively. The collaborative men’s
painting is called Kulata Tjuta (Many Spears) and was made by
senior cultural lawmen, including Hector Burton and Ray Ken.
This major work is part of Hector Burton’s ongoing ‘Spears
Project’, which engages younger men in learning traditional spear
making practices.
As well as collaborative works, the exhibition includes individual
works created by Tjala artists. The first Tjala artist to begin
making a painting for HEARTLAND was Wawiriya Burton, who
depicts her birth country on Pitjantjatjara lands in Ngayuku
Ngura (My Country). To make this painting Burton sat in the
middle of her canvas and worked from the centre outwards.
After painting a ground colour, she carefully added more and
more layers of detail in bright, rich colour. In the finished work
the colours and shapes seem to explode from the canvas.
Responding
Why do you think there are so many colours? How do these
relate to the landscape?
Making
Create a painting about your heartland. What symbols and
colours would you use to show what is important to you? What
type of sounds could accompany your work?
art in the anangu pitjantjatjara yankunytjatjara heartland is at once the most ancient and the most contemporary art of our time.
nici cuMpsTon and lisa slade
‘
’
Hector Burton, Steven Burton, Willy Kaika, Ray Ken, Mick Wikilyiri, Stanley Windy, Pitjantjatjara people, South Australia, Kulata Tjuta (Many Spears), 2013, Amata, South Australia, synthetic polymer paint on linen; © courtesy the artists and Tjala Arts, Amata
tJanPi desert Weavers
The Tjanpi Desert Weavers are an art collective involving over
400 Aboriginal women from twenty-eight communities across
the desert regions of South Australia, Western Australia and the
Northern Territory. Tjanpi is the Pitjantjara word for dry spinifex
grass. The women use grasses and coloured fibres to weave
figurative sculptures and containers. Dried tjanpi is coiled and
bundled in combination with other materials, such as coloured
yarns and raffia, string and wire, animal fur, beads and seeds.
Found objects are often incorporated into their works.
Coiling is an ancient technique, one which has been used by
Aboriginal women over generations to make reed and grass
stalk mats and baskets. As innovative artists, the Tjanpi Desert
Weavers experiment with new ideas and materials and create
new forms.
Nine senior Aboriginal women from Amata and Ernabella made
the sculptures for this exhibition – Paarpakani (Take Flight) and
Tjanpi Punu (Trees) – during bush camps in 2011 and 2012. The
colourful sculptures form a whimsical landscape, with giant flying
birds forming the centrepiece of the Tjala artists’ installation of
paintings and sculptures.
Woven tjina (footprints) were created especially for
HEARTLAND and reflect the tracking of footprints, which is
such a vital part of bush life.
Paarpakani (Take Flight) shows the artists’ observations of local
raptors hunting prey. Also represented are traditional healers
called Ngangkari, placed on the backs of two of the birds.
Woven Punu (trees) provide homes for birds and tell ancestral
creation stories about the importance of the trees in Aboriginal
culture.
Responding
Discuss how the Tjanpi Desert Weavers’ works of art connect
with their traditional lands and stories.
Find out how Aboriginal women add colour and texture to their
weavings and sculptures.
Are the Tjanpi works of art contemporary works, even though
traditional weaving techniques are used? Research their other
projects.
Making
Use found objects and string to create your own sculptural creature.
Amata women with their birds from Paarpakani (take flight) – Nyurpaya Kaika-Burton, Yaritji Young, Mary Pan, Ilawanti Ungkutjuru Ken, Paniny Mick 2011; © courtesy the artists andTjanpi Desert Weavers, NPY Women’s Council, Alice Springs photo: Jo Foster
For anangu artists, their works of art are the land and the people, and hence it is not surprising that the art takes myriad forms.
nici cuMpsTon and lisa slade
‘
’
as the last precious remnants of a time then gone – deep inside the pockets of the aprons that now held each of them captive held them firm and held them fast keeping them away from all they knew keeping them distant from their knowing but such fruit is again being offered to us by yhonnie
doMenico de claRio
yhonnie scarce
Yhonnie (pronounced you – ah – nee) Scarce, who was born in
Woomera, is a descendant of the Kokatha people from the Eyre
Peninsula and the Nukunu people from the Southern Flinders
Ranges. She uses her works of art to highlight the treatment
of Aboriginal Australians in a range of contexts, with her work
becoming the bridge between the personal and national
experience.
Scarce uses her blown-glass sculptures of the bush banana, an
important fruit that grows across inland Australia (and is also
known as the silky pear), to represent Aboriginal people, culture
and traditions.
The artist created The Cultivation of Whiteness for HEARTLAND,
using the title of a book by Professor Warwick Anderson, which
describes the practice of the removal of many Aboriginal people
from their land and their forced assimilation with white society.
The glass beakers, containing deliberately scarred glass bush
bananas, represent the scientific testing conducted on Aboriginal
people and the impact of colonisation in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries.
Responding
Why use glass? Why use scientific objects?
Read the wall text in the Gallery and the quotation on this page.
Discuss these in relation to Scarce’s work The Cultivation of
Whiteness.
What is Scarce saying about her heartland?
Research other Aboriginal artists such as Fiona Foley, Rea and
Tony Albert. Does their work have anything in common with
Scarce’s
Making
Scarce uses the bush banana as a symbol. Choose an item
important to you, or relating to your heritage, and make a work
of art that symbolises this significance.
‘
’
detail: Yhonnie Scarce, born Woomera, South Australia 1973, Kokatha / Nukunu people, South Australia The Cultivation of Whiteness 2013, Adelaide and Melbourne, blown glass and scientific glass, courtesy the artist and Dianne Tanzer Gallery and Projects, photo: Janelle Low
angela valaManesh & hossein valaManesh
Hossein and Angela Valamanesh have contributed to the art
world of South Australia for nearly four decades. They often
work together, and now, with their son Nassiem, they have
collaborated on works for HEARTLAND, and have also made
individual works. Hossein migrated from Iran to Adelaide in the
1970s; Angela was born in Port Pirie and Nassiem in Adelaide.
Although they began in different places, their heartland is now
their family home in Adelaide.
The Valamanesh family has created a number of works. Hossein’s
work is a denuded tree suspended from the ceiling above a
circle of shed leaves. Angela has created her works inside four
display cases, in which a collection of finely cast and modelled
organisms are exhibited. The collaborative work with their son
Nassiem is a video that captures the movements of snails in
their garden.
Responding
‘... the desire to work with artists who respond to place in an
innovative manner’ describes the motivation behind the selection
of artists for the HEARTLAND exhibition. Discuss how the
Valamanesh family have responded in an innovative manner to
the notion of heartland.
Making
We walk past and through nature’s miniature world every
day, and do not see the detail. Using a camera or pencil and
paper, record a close-up view of your world, as seen by the tiny
creatures who live there.
For angela and hossein Valamanesh, the term heaRTland offers deep resonance. Both artists make art inspired by their spiritual connectedness.
nici cuMpsTon and lisa slade
‘’
detail: Angela Valamanesh, Hossein Valamanesh, Nassiem Valamanesh, Still image from ‘What Remains?’, 2012, Adelaide,HD video, looped, edition 5 + 1 AP; photo: Iain Bond, All images © courtesy the artists and Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide and Breenspace, Sydney
aMy Joy Watson
Adelaide-based artist Amy Joy Watson was born in 1987. She
graduated from the Adelaide Central School of Art in 2008.
Humans have always wanted to fly, but it wasn’t until the
nineteenth century that helium, a gas lighter than air, was
discovered. During that century of industrial development
people also began to experiment with hot-air balloons. Since
then balloons in all their guises – children’s toys, airships and
underwater air tanks – have fascinated us.
Watson has taken our delight and wonder in balloons to create
gentle, suspended structures which sway quietly in the air
currents caused as people pass by.
Using balsa wood and helium-filled balloons as her key materials,
in combination with her knowledge of mathematical shapes and
skills as a needleworker, Watson has created floating polyhedra.
She carefully stitches the triangles of balsa wood together, paints
them with watercolours and suspends them from helium-filled
balloons. Watson has chosen subtle colours that might suggest
the light of a ‘sun-scorched South Australian landscape or the
early morning light’.
Responding
What are your feelings as you walk past this installation?
If Watson had used bright, strong hues instead of a quiet palette,
would that make a difference to how you respond to the work?
View the artist video and discuss Watson’s studio space and
her process of making art with a classmate. Focus on the
arrangement of the space, the materials you can see, the
equipment she uses and any visual imagery in her studio.
Making
Observe and sketch on grid paper the types of forms Watson
uses.
Using mathematical tools, construct your own signature
polyhedron, and use unusual materials to create your own
suspended sculpture.
The subtle palette of the installation for heaRTland is suggestive of an australian landscape, its floating forms intended to evoke the gentle movement of a horizon line or sunset.
Wendy WalkeR
‘’
Install view: Amy Joy Watson, born Adelaide 1987, Floating sequence, 2013, Adelaide, balsa wood, watercolour, gouache, polyester thread, felt, mesh, helium balloons, lead weights; courtesy the artist and Dianne Tanzer Gallery and Projects, Melbourne, photo: Photo’s by Andy Nowell.
glossary
aboriginal: Used to refer to the first or original people.
ancestral creation stories: stories that form the basis of law (Aboriginal lore) by which Aboriginal people live and are integral to
their belief systems.
assimilation: the process in society whereby the dominant culture absorbs and therefore diminishes the rights, identity and cultural
customs of another group.
complementary colours: colours found opposite each other on a colour wheel that when used together create vibrancy.
curator: someone who is a custodian of a collection and/or a maker of exhibitions.
etching: a printmaking process whereby impressions are made onto a surface which are then transferred through a printing press.
glass-blowing: a technique for making glass objects that involves heating, inflating and shaping molten glass.
glass-casting: a technique which involves the use of a mould to create a replica of the original form in glass.
ground colour: the first colour applied to a canvas, usually as a base colour.
honey ant: an ant, found in the Western Desert, that stores its food source (honey) in its abdomen. The honey ants live in deep
chambers underground and are both an important food source and the basis of traditional ancestral stories for Aboriginal people.
The word Tjala in Pitjantjatjara translates into English as honey ant.
installation: a work of art that occupies a specific space and is dependent upon that space for its meaning.
Ngangkari: traditional healers who attend to people who are sick.
perforating: the act of pushing through or puncturing a surface.
polyhedra: solid figures with many flat faces.
En plein air: to create a work of art outdoors, in the open environment.
sandblasting: a technique used to texture the surface of glass using air pressure.
surreal: possessing a dream-like quality.
Raptors: birds of prey including eagles.