REVISIONS exhibition to be shown for the first time in UK at Pannett Art Gallery and Whitby Museum

The exhibition has been curated by Rebecca Hossack – her eponymous London gallery was the first to exhibit Australian aboriginal art back in 1988, and has continued the commitment to promoting and understanding such work ever since.

The exhibition stands in two linked and inter-connected parts.

Whitby Museum will present a carefully selected collection of aboriginal paintings by leading Warlpiri artists from the remote desert community of Yuendumu.

These are images painted in acrylic on canvas but deploying the millennia-old ‘dot and circle’ iconography of the desert peoples.

The seemingly abstract pictures provide both a schematised vision of the land, viewed from above, and a narrative account of its creation during the ‘Dreamtime’.

Pannett Art Gallery will feature the work of British artist Patrick Waterhouse’s collaborative project with the Warlpiri artists.

Over the past ten years, groups of Warlpiri artists in Central Australia, in collaboration with Waterhouse, have been revising a collection of maps, flags, photographs, comic illustrations, and other archival material.

The resulting work amends assumptions inscribed through the old documents, includes information missing from the historical record, and gives voice to the stories, passed down from generation to generation, of the original custodians of the land.

Despite colonisation, the Warlpiri groups have preserved an enduring philosophical worldview shaped by complex ceremonial traditions and artistic practices.

In 2014, Waterhouse travelled to the Warlpiri area for the first time.

He had been photographing in Central Australia since 2011 and had gradually acquired documents tracing Australia’s colonial history.

Waterhouse presented these photographs, along with archival material, to members of the Warlukurlangu Art Centres in the Yuendumu and Nyirripi communities.

He invited them to rework the documents using the traditional Warlpiri technique of dot painting, which is practised by almost half of the community.

The exhibition also includes the UK premiere of The True Story, a two-channel video installation that begins with Captain Cook’s observation of the Transit of Venus, narrated by members of the Warlpiri community.

It reflects on what is missing from the historical record and confronts Australia’s colonial narrative with its Indigenous history, which began more than 50,000 years ago.