educaTion ResouRceeducaTion ResouRce

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

lisTen

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.