The award-winning installation of Coen’s Naomi Hobson.
Three Cape York artists have performed exceptionally on the big stage, winning honours at the Queensland Regional Art Awards.
This year, the QRAA invited artists to explore the concept of “Perspective”, calling artists to enter work that considers the concept of perspective in its many facets, viewpoints and nuances.
The theme played on a term known in the visual arts and relevant to our modern society.
The pieces that were judged showcased stimulating entries that address this broad concept through the visual arts.
The QRAA is an annual visual arts prize and exhibition for established and emerging artists living in regional and remote Queensland.
Colina Wymarra, of Seisia, was awarded the Remote Area Artist Award for her painting, Athamu Ulwung (Picinini belong me), at the QRAA gala event at the Judith Wright Art Centre in Brisbane.
Wymarra said she was inspired by her great-grandmother.
Seisia’s Colina Wymarra was inspired by her great-grandmother.
“For centuries women have experienced violence in many forms,” she wrote.
“Wandinu was a Gudang woman from Somerset, Cape York, who experienced violence not only through unwelcome settlements, but also in the form of being raped by a white man as a 13-year-old child which resulted in the birth of a son – my grandfather.
“Wandinu experienced violence in many ways – invasion of her country, invasion of her body, judgement and isolation.
“Throughout all of this, Wandinu survived, but tragically died from a snake bite a few months after giving birth and my grandfather was raised by the tribe.
“I have never met Wandinu, but my view of her is a hurting but strong woman of whom I am a proud descendant of.”
Coen’s Naomi Hobson won the Mervyn Moriarty Landscape Award for her ceramic installation, Red Kangaroo and Little River Rock Cod.
Coen’s Naomi Hobson and her award-winning installation.
And Cairns-based artist Rosella Namok, who has close ties to the Cape after growing up at Temple Bay, was highly commended in the Art for Life Award.
“Temple Bay connects Rosella’s definitive painterly designs through a poetic landscape source into sculptural form. Temple Bay is a remote coastal location north of Lockhart River where the artist grew up,” her profile read.
“Rosella has vivid memories of visiting the bay during her fishing trips, viewing the mangrove coastline from the water.
“Assembled on a curved base, the sculpture shows 16 vertical bronze ‘ribbons’ representing the mangrove lines, finished with three distinctive patinas.
“One side is an oceanic sea-green patina, the other an earthy ochre. Both the front and rear faces are high-polished bronze, which replicates Rosella’s finger marking patterns.”
Rosella Namok produced a sculpture that was inspired by her upbringing at Temple Bay, north of Lockhart River.
