An artist from one of the remotest communities in Australia has won the country’s most prestigious Indigenous art prize.
Timo Hogan collected $50,000 on Friday in the 2021 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art awards (Natsiaa), for his work Lake Baker 2020, with the judging panel describing it as a “masterful painting of international calibre” from a “remarkably confident artist with talent that exceeds his age and experience”.
“In a work of this scale, there is nowhere for an artist to hide,” the judges said in a statement. “Timo’s restrained use of paint, texture and form not only demonstrates exceptional artistic instinct, but also his intimate connection to Country.
“Lake Baker is a meditative, connected and assured master work by one of Australia’s most exciting up and coming artists.”
In his late 40s, Hogan is one of the younger members of the Spinifex Arts Project, headquartered in the community of Tjuntjuntjara in the south-east of Western Australia, in the Great Victoria Desert. The community of fewer than 300 inhabitants is located 650km north-east of Kalgoorlie; access to the community is regulated by entry permits.
Hogan was unable to attend the announcement at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) in Darwin. In a video and prepared statement he said Lake Baker told the ancestral creation story of the Wati Kutjara Tjukurpa (Two Men creation line) and the Wanampi (water serpent).
He said Lake Baker was a sacred place and he had been taught the story as a boy from his father.
He said winning the award “makes me feel strong inside”.
“I’m happy for this prize and that people see this work is important.”
Hogan said he would use the $50,000 to buy a Toyota (a local generic term for all four wheel drives) to go kangaroo hunting and make contact with family living outside the Tjuntjuntjara community.
MAGNT’s curator of Aboriginal art and material culture, Rebekah Raymond, told the Guardian: “There’s many senior artists at Spinifex Hill Studio, and he’s one of the younger artists, so to have him celebrated in this way and recognised this way is just testament to his talent.
“He’s an exciting person to watch, his practices are so detailed and considered and heavy with knowledge.”
More than 240 works were transported to Darwin’s MAGNT to compete in the 38th year of the awards, with the judges Liz Nowell (director of Brisbane’s Institute of Modern Art), Dennis Stokes (CEO of the Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute) and local Larrakia artist Denise Quall selecting 65 finalists.
MAGNT’s director, Marcus Schutenko, said Covid-19 border restrictions had presented challenges to mounting the exhibition, which can also be viewed virtually here.
Young Quandamooka woman artist Kyra Mancktelow won the $5,000 emerging artist award for Moongalba 11, a haunting work incorporating printmaking, textiles and etching to capture the devastating impact of colonisation, Christianity and assimilation on 19th century Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families.
“I draw inspiration from my cultural heritage, my mother and father’s side, but also any story that I feel needs to be told,” Mancktelow said.
“I love that I get to tell stories through visual aspects and tell stories that I feel are important.”
The $5,000 Wandjuk Marika 3D memorial award went to the Mparntwe
(Alice Springs) artists Hubert Pareroultja and Mervyn Rubuntja for their Through the Veil of Time, a watercolour on silkscreen mesh work.
Bugai Whyoulter, a Kartujarra woman from the Kunawarritji community in Western Australia’s Pilbara, was praised by judges for her “gestural brushstrokes and expressive use of paint”, noting that her work Wantili (Warntili, Canning Stock Route Well 25), using synthetic polymer paint on canvas, was a “comparatively quieter work” to many of the other finalists. She collected the $5,000 general painting award.
The bark painting award was awarded to Dhambit Munuŋgurr (Gunyuŋara, Northern Territory) for Bees at Gäṉgän (synthetic polymer paint on stringybark) and the works on paper award went to Ms M Wirrpanda (Yirrkala, Northern Territory) for Untitled 2021 (fibre-tipped pen on paper).
The Telstra multimedia award was won by Pedro Wonaeamirri of Milikapiti in the Tiwi Islands.
The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art awards exhibition is open at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin until 6 February 2022, and available to view online
