The City of Fremantle Art Collection presents Panacea, a major exhibition of works at Fremantle Arts Centre. Opening 6:30pm Friday 31 July, Panacea brings together significant historical and contemporary artworks offering a personal experience of solace as we experience the worldwide shock and disruption of COVID19.

Through thoughtful curation Panacea, from the Greek word meaning ‘a universal remedy’, is FAC’s invitation to the community to reflect and find restorative and optimistic human moments at this time of uncertainty.

FAC curators André Lipscombe and Ric Spencer present Panacea as a journey; from the old normal homelife to lockdown and isolation, and re-emerging with an appreciation of our deep need for empathy and shared personal experience which helps create an understanding of our own place in the world.

The exhibition includes 148 works by 70 artists drawn from the City of Fremantle Art Collection and includes paintings, drawings, photography, ceramics, prints, and video.

Through Panacea it’s also evident how valuable an art collection is to its community, telling interconnecting stories and creating empowering perspectives upon the time in which we live.

“Panacea demonstrates that preservation of the art of the contemporary past can be harnessed to reflect the extraordinary circumstances all of us face in an active and emerging crisis,” said City of Fremantle Art Collection Curator André Lipscombe.

Panacea includes artworks by WA artists including Marcus Beilby, Penny Bovell, Sharyn Egan, Jeremy Kirwan-Ward, Eveline Kotai, Jane Martin, Brian McKay, Kathleen O’Connor and Ken Wadrop.

There’s also important works by WA photographers Christine Gosfield and Graham Miller, and a series of artist portraits by Brad Rimmer and Tom Gibbons. Several winning works from the prestigious Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award by national artists such as Mike Parr and Keith Cowlam are showcased, along with works by WA ceramicists Sandra Black, Maria Phillips and Gary Zeck.

Jim Cathcart, Fremantle Arts Centre Director says, “During this weird, unsettling time we wanted to provide a quiet moment of reflection and refuge for our audience, and reveal the depth and quality of the City of Fremantle Art Collection.”

The City of Fremantle Art Collection is grounded in the story of Fremantle, where artists have always chosen to work and live. It is the largest municipal collection in the state. Over five decades the collection has grown to over 1,500 pieces including paintings, sculpture, prints, photographs and WA ceramics.

The majority of the artworks both reflect and reveal Fremantle life – its people, relationships, work, culture, politics, social rituals, conflict, and leisure time.

Panacea opens 6:30pm Friday 31 July. The exhibition runs until Sunday 20 September. Find out more and view the artist list in full here. 

Live music makes its long-awaited return to Fremantle Arts Centre this August with Gallery Sessions.

This intimate concert series, performed up-close and stripped back in FAC’s Main Gallery and Pavlich Room, features a double bill of WA’s most talented songwriters each week.

These gigs are cosy – with small crowds and warm storytelling set against a beautiful backdrop of artworks from FAC’s upcoming exhibition Panacea. Audiences have the opportunity to take a guided curator’s tour of the exhibition before settling in for a cabaret-style evening of song.

FAC Director Jim Cathcart is eager for the Centre’s live music program to resume.

“Fremantle Arts Centre is all about connecting artists with audiences and nothing beats the experience of live music at FAC,” he said.

“There’s a huge appetite for gigs! Our audience is ready to see our talented local musicians in action, in person. We are really happy our doors are open again and we can get back to what we do.”

Gallery Sessions runs every Thursday in August.

6 AUG:      Siobhan Cotchin + Jack Davies
13 AUG:    Odette Mercy (Duo) + Timothy Nelson
20 AUG:   Jordi James (San Cisco) + Joan & the Giants (Duo)
27 AUG:   GUM + Rachael Dease & Tristen Parr

Tyrown Waigana is a Noongar and Saibai Islander residing in Perth, West Australia. He began creating from an early age and has been drawing for as long as he can remember. With a Bachelor of Arts from Curtin University under his wing, Tyrown now runs Crawlin Crocodile offering a range of art and design services.

We recently caught up with Tyrown to chat about his work in the 2020 Revealed exhibition and to congratulate him on winning this year’s NAIDOC Poster Competition.

Hi Tyrown, can you tell us about your art practice and what inspired you to start creating?

My practice includes illustration, painting, sculpture, animation, and graphic design. I tend to go through phases of each. I think a lot of my paintings and sculptures deal with surreal situations and escaping reality, however it’s pretty ambiguous. My animation work is short comedy skits and tries to provide insights into how people around me behave or at least how I observe them. My graphic design work is contemporary/traditional Indigenous art, bridging the gap of indigenous art on digital platforms.

Tyrown Waigan, Martian Man Meetup, 91 x 91cm. Image courtesy the artist

Last year Revealed featured a selection of your paintings, drawings, and sculpture, this year you have an animation called Mostly Brown People in the exhibition. When did you start working with animation and what was the inspiration behind the work?

I started working in animation in 2017. I picked up a unit at uni which covered the basics. Since then I’ve been slowly learning more about it and creating animated content. It’s just the funny stuff I see or think of. My dad says a lot of contradictory things that are hilarious. Sometimes I start animating one story and a completely different story comes out, so I make it up as I go, it’s whatever I think will be funnier. It’s also a matter of how quickly I can be funny because animation takes a long time to make and people’s attention spans aren’t very big on social media, I know mine isn’t. Revealed really allowed me to accumulate my work and gave me a platform where people will take the time to watch my animations.

In other exciting news, you’ve just won the 2020 National NAIDOC Poster competition. Can you tell us about the work?

It depicts the story of the Rainbow Serpent which came out of the Dream Time to create the land. The story says that the land was once flat and the Rainbow Serpent came and shaped the land with its massive body. When it moved it created low riverways and high ridges before taking its final resting play at Uluru. My artwork also shows that Indigenous people are connected to this great spirit, therefore the land has been created for us.

Tyrown Waigana, Shape of Land, 2020

What’s up next? Do you have any exciting projects or exhibitions in the pipeline?

I am trying to get an animated web series off the ground based on my comic book that is yet to be published. It’s titled The Rest of Your Life’s Gonna be Shit and it follows an Aboriginal teen’s days at high school. It provides insights into growing up as an indigenous person in an urban, working-class and very multicultural area. It also has some surreal situations and lots of comedy.

View Tyrowns’s works and the full Revealed Exhibition at FAC until Sunday 26 July. Free entry

Ninuku Arts is a wholly-Indigenous owned and governed art centre which supports artists from two communities – Pipalyatjara and Kalka. Each have populations of around 100-150 Anangu people and the majority are Pitjantjatjara speakers. Anangu means ‘people’ in Pitjantjatjara.

Both communities are located in the far north western corner of South Australia, near the tri-state border of South Australia, Western Australia and Northern Territory. The art centre prides itself on its inclusivity by providing opportunities for all generations and embracing individuality in artists.

For the Revealed Exhibition, four artists with vastly different artistic styles have been selected. Selinda Davidson was born in Alice Springs. As a teenager she moved to Irruntyju and then Pipalyatjara. After finishing school she became a member of Ninuku Arts, painting regularly as well as working as an arts worker. Davidson works alongside her grandparents Jimmy Donagan and Molly Miller and has learnt from them how to paint tjukurpa (Dreamtime), translating stories into her designs and traditional mark-making. For Revealed she has created two beautifully painted blown glass vessels.

Revealed 2020 Artist Selinda Davidson making a work on glass. Image courtesy and copyright Ninuku Arts

Judy Miller is a dedicated artist and integral member of Ninuku, she also works as a retail assistant and arts worker.  Judy’s mother is Molly Nampitjin Miller, the founding director of Ninuku Arts. During the 1970s and the Homeland Movement, the family moved to Pipalyatjara before moving to Kalka, where Judy is still based today with her family. Like many Anangu women, Judy has learnt skills in punu (wood carving and burning) and tjanpi (grass weaving), where she has proven to be extremely proficient. Her paintings often depict designs associated with Kungkarrakalpa Tjukurpa (the Seven Sisters Dreamtime story) and her bush tucker knowledge.

Judy Miller painting in the Ninuku Arts studios

Rita Watson was born in Warburton, a remote community in WA. She is the daughter of renowned Irrunytju artist, Tjuruparu Watson. During her younger years she spent a lot of time travelling across the NPY Lands, particularly between Irrunytju and Amata. Today she lives in Kalka with her husband. As an artist Rita is extremely passionate, dedicated and hard-working. Her artworks are heavily influenced by her father’s Country, Illurpa, from which she paints striking, iconographic designs using a combination of soft, feminine colours with bold graphics.

Rita Watson Painting in the Ninuku Arts studios

Finally, Cassaria Young-Hogan rounds out the Ninuku Arts group. Her mother is Susan Young. Young-Hogan grew up in Kalka Community and attended school in Pipalyatjara. She has two sisters and now lives with the Young family in Pipalyatjara Community. She has three works on display, one large scale painting entitled Bush Trip and two blown glass vessels Tjukulua Tjuta and Bush trip.

Cassaria Young Hogan painting a glass work at Ninuku Arts

View all of the Ninuku works and the full Revealed Exhibition at FAC until Sunday 26 July. Free entry

I am delighted to announce that Fremantle Arts Centre’s much-loved course program is set to resume.

To ensure the safety and comfort of our students and tutors, we’ve implemented several new measures in line with public health advice.

• Studios will be thoroughly cleaned before and after each class.
• The studio layouts have been changed to ensure social distancing can be maintained at all times.
• Course content has been adapted to minimise the sharing of equipment. Any shared equipment will be thoroughly cleaned between classes.
• Hand washing protocols will be implemented as students enter studios, with sanitiser provided.

We are taking all necessary precautions to ensure our classes are a fun and safe experience for all of our students.

Kids’ Holiday Classes begin first, running weekdays Monday 6 – Friday 17 July. Enrolments now open at fac.org.au/courses/kids.

A full Term 3 program for Adults then commences on Monday 3 August, running across weekdays, weekends and nights for eight weeks until Friday 25 September.

Members enrolments open Monday 6 July, with the general public able to enrol a week later from Monday 13 July.

The FAC team is very eager to welcome students new and returning back into the studios.

Jim Cathcart
Director, Fremantle Arts Centre

Desmond Taylor is one of five  early career Martumili Artists selected to showcase their works in this year’s Revealed Exhibition.

He was born in 1964 close to the Oakover River. Two years later his family moved into Jingalong and were amongst the last Martu to live entirely in the desert with access to rations.

Desmond went to school in Nullagine and Perth and now works as a professional translator and educator as well as an artist. He primarily paints his family’s Country around Karlamilyl (Rudall River) and the creation stories for that Country, especially the Ngayarta Kujarra Dreaming.

“I feel pukurlpa, I feel happy when I paint,” he said. “It brings happiness, connection, family. It keeps the stories alive and keeps connection to ngurra, Country.”

For Revealed, Desmond painted three exquisite largescale works on arches paper depicting the Niminjarra story.

“Niminjarra is the two brothers transforming into a snake so they can come back home to Ngayartakujarra (Lake Dora). They were in training for ceremony, those two brothers, but they were kept too long and nobody was there to release them.

“They waited then they decided to transform into snakes to travel back to where they came from, because their mother was waiting for them. This is Jukurrpa (Dreaming story).”

Desmond Taylor, Martumili Artists, Niminjarra, 2020, acrylic on arches paper, dimensions variable

Desmond Taylor (Martumili Artists), Niminjarra (detail), 2020, acrylic on arches paper, 101 x 66cm

Desmond Taylor (Martumili Artists), Niminjarra (detail), 2020, acrylic on arches paper, 105 x 75cm

Desmond Taylor (Martumili Artists), Niminjarra (detail), 2020, acrylic on arches paper, 102 x 66cm

View Desmond’s works and the full Revealed Exhibition at FAC until Sunday 26 July. Free entry

Matilda Oxtoby is one of two Kira Kiro Arts Project artists selected for the 2020 Revealed Exhibition. The art centre, located on the land of the Kwini people in Kalumburu in north western WA, was named after the Kira Kiro or Kirri Kirri spiritual figures represented in rock galleries found in the area.

Matilda’s works are similarly inspired by the important spiritual figure – the Wandjina (rainmaker), who brings the Wunju (wet season). “A long time ago my people believed that he (the Wandjina) was a god. They used to ask him for rain and food. He travelled around the coast creating the world and carrying the clouds… the Wandjina taught people how to make artefacts and hunting tools.”

In each of her six paintings selected for Revealed, Matilda has depicted the Wandjina surrounded by different things – shields used for fighting; dilly bags, used for carrying yams and bush berries; clapping sticks for dancing; and bush buckets for carrying honey.

Matilda is an established artist who has recently started painting at Kira Kiro. Inspired by her sister Sylvia Djanghara and well known artist and Uncle Waigan Djanghara, Matilda’s works reflect and consider local rock art themes and the flora and fauna that inhabit the river and pristine coastline of the Kalumburu surrounds.

View Matilda’s series of works and the full Revealed Exhibition in person when FAC reopens Monday 15 June. The exhibition is open daily until Sunday 26 July. Free entry.

Dear Friends

I am pleased to let you know Fremantle Arts Centre re-opens to the public on Monday 15 June.

In the galleries we are presenting Revealed 2020: New and Emerging WA Aboriginal Artists, a fantastic exhibition with works from 120 artists from all over the state. This is the chance to see Revealed up close and in person, following the huge response when we took the show online after FAC was obliged to close in late March. Many works are still available for purchase, and with 100% of the proceeds going back to the artists and remote Aboriginal art centres, there is no better time to show your support. Also opening is Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri in WA: Hunter Dreaming, an exhibition of two major works from the 1970s by the celebrated NT Papunya Tula Anmatyer artist. Both exhibitions run until Sunday 26 July.

Our shop FOUND and reception also re-open on Monday 15 June, while the café and FAC’s beautiful grounds are already open. Meanwhile, FOUND online is open for business 24/7.

In relation to FAC’s courses, we will present a July Kids’ School Holiday Program, with a full Term 3 Adults’ Program to follow. The classes, dates and booking information will be announced as they become available.

Other family programs such as Kids’ Corner and Buster: It’s All About Play! will resume at a later date.

The Moores Building Gallery is tentatively scheduled to re-open Monday 29 June.

Opening Hours

Mon 15 June – Tue 30 June: 10am–4pm, 7 days

Wed 1 July onwards: 10am–5pm, 7 days

We will, of course, be implementing all the necessary public health protocols and social distancing measures that have become common over the past few months.

I look forward to seeing you soon, back at FAC.

Jim Cathcart
Director, Fremantle Arts Centre

Started in 1958, the City of Fremantle Art Collection is the largest municipal art collection in WA with over 1,500 artworks which shine a light on Fremantle’s past and help us make sense of what it means to live and work in Fremantle today.

In this episode of FAC CHATS, the Collection’s Curator André Lipscombe selects six significant and diverse works as part of a virtual gallery talk. Images of each artwork are presented below.

George Forsyth (1843-1894), (Arthur head Fremantle and mouth of the Swan River Estuary with storm clouds), 1893, oil paint on mill board, 33.4 x 53cm, no.1471. Courtesy City of Fremantle Art Collection

Kathleen O’Connor (1876-1968), Still Life with Flowers, c1935-9, oil paint on canvas, 90 x 72.5cm, no. 218, Courtesy Kathleen O’Connor Advisory Committee

Sharyn Egan (1957-), Walyalup Dreaming (triptych), 2002, acrylic paint and photography on plywood, 90 x 181cm, no. 1092.1-3. Courtesy the Artist

Kevin Ballantine (1950-), Cup City (Rad Series) 1983/4/01, B&W photograph, 23, 60 x 60cm, no. 1507. Courtesy the Artist

Kevin Ballantine (1950-), Cup City 09/01/1987/020/9, B&W photograph, 15, 60 x 60cm, no. 1508. Courtesy the Artist

Kevin Ballantine (1950-), Cup City 02/01/1987/05/01, B&W photograph, 15, 60 x 60cm, no. 1509. Courtesy the Artist

Kevin Ballantine (1950-), Cup City 17/01/1987/11/03, B&W photograph, 23, 60 x 60cm, no. 1510. Courtesy the Artist

Kevin Ballantine (1950-), Cup City 16/04/1987/27/18, B&W photograph, 23, 60 x 60cm, no. 1511. Courtesy the Artist

Tania Ferrier (1958-), If these walls could speak (series), digital photographs, 80 x 54cm each

Tania Ferrier (1958-), If these walls could speak (series), digital photographs, 80 x 54cm each

Tania Ferrier (1958-), If these walls could speak (series), digital photographs, 80 x 54cm each

Tania Ferrier (1958-), If these walls could speak (series), digital photographs, 80 x 54cm each

Tania Ferrier (1958-), If these walls could speak (series), digital photographs, 80 x 54cm each

Jan Davis (1952-), Solomon, 1995, 7 volume artist book in casement digital print, 14.7 x 9.7 x 14cm, no. 936. Courtesy the Artist

Jan Davis (1952-), Solomon, 1995, 7 volume artist book in casement digital print, 14.7 x 9.7 x 14,cm, no. 936. Courtesy the Artist

Ku’arlu Mangga, meaning ‘good nest’, is a community centre that provides assistance to Aboriginal residents in Northampton, a town north of Geraldton. Ku’arlu Mangga actively seek and promote opportunities for highly visible, positive cultural expression in their community, with a particular focus on youth wellbeing.

Four Ku’arlu Mangga artists were selected to be part of the 2020 Revealed Exhibition – Colleen Drage, Mauretta Drage, Beverly Peck and Leanne Peck.

The group were supported by the Revealed Regional Exhibition Workshops program to make a new series of work for the exhibition. Perth-based artist and printmaker Rachel Salmon-Lomas travelled to the art centre in January, working with the artists and encouraging them to experiment with new printmaking techniques.  The resulting works are inspired by the bushfoods, collecting vessels and animals of the region.

With a strong graphic style and crisp, bold colours, these affordable prints are a perfect gift or ideal if you’re looking to start your art collection.

Ku’arlu Mangga also have a fun range of drink bottles, keep cups, textiles and prints available via their website.

Revealed 2020 works by Ku’arlu Mangga artists Colleen Drage. Mauretta Drage, Beverly Peck & Leanne Peck, 300gsm sumerset satin,
oil based ink, dimensions variable

About the Artists

Colleen Drage grew up in Ajana and on the Murchison River, then moved to Northampton for her high school education. She spent her early married life in Northampton and Tardun, raising five children and becoming involved in the Yakka program, which supported youth in the Mullewa area.  Drage is the Community Coordinator and Founding Member for the Ku’arlu Mangga and was a Board member for the West Australian Aboriginal Advisory Council (2011-15).

Mauretta Drage grew up in Northampton and Wandalgu. She is a special needs teachers’ assistant at Cable Beach Primary School and often works as a Supervisor for Northampton Old School Youth Program. Drage teaches wood burning and painting in the youth program and assists the cultural camps in the Murchison River near Kalbarri. Drage has been developing her painting practice with Ku’arlu Mangga since 2010 and since 2017 has been working with printmaking techniques.

Beverly Peck is a member of the Ku’arlu Mangga art team. Beverly enjoys making beautiful things from beads and recycled objects such as massed wildflowers from plastic bottles. She enjoys making prints with her daughter Leanne, with whom she shares her Goanna stories. Revealed is her first exhibition.

Leanne Peck grew up in Wiluna and is an artist who often uses recycled and found objects such as wildflowers and plastic bottles in her works. Since 2015, Peck has been developing her painting and printmaking practice with Ku’arlu Mangga. Revealed is her first exhibition.

View the 2020 Revealed Exhibition Online Catalogue