The dreamers

Overview

Sometimes we take our public art institutions for granted. We forget that behind their familiar exteriors sit not only artworks and artifacts we know and love, but many we haven’t yet met and would hit it off with immediately.

There’s nothing like a first impression, but there’s also something to be said for a reunion. The dreamers brings together both: familiar names and those not so well-known. The show is taken from the Gallery’s Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander collection and presents eight master-artists. What’s amazing is the sheer breadth of style and practice present in just this select few: from the dizzying optics of Papunya Tula painter Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, to the lyrical landscape of Arnhem Land artist Ginger Riley Munduwalawala.

Make friends with pieces in the permanent collection; they may not call you for your birthday, but they’ll always be there (unless, of course, they’re being restored).

Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, untitled, 2001, 244x183cm