This talk by Jack Egan on Yidumduma Bill Harney: Bush Professor is at 10am on Saturday, March 17. Mr Egan has created the complementary online resource to support the exhibition. He will give a brief version of the Wardaman creation story, then move on to survey a range of materials that will assist the audience in orientating the exhibition itself and the wider Wardaman Dreaming, ecological knowledge and contact history.

When he was a young man, Yidumduma worked in the pastoral industry and was quickly elevated to head stockman because of his entrepreneurial and charismatic personality. He now runs his own cattle station and is an internationally renowned storyteller, songman, didjeridu player and artist. While he grew up painting, Harney did not formally enter the art world until the late 1980s. His remarkable paintings capture a wide range of customary topics often derived from the ancient rock art from his country in the Victoria River District southeast of Katherine, where he still undertakes rock art tours. 

Resource is available at: www.gyracc.org.au.

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ANTHEA da Silva: Transparent / Opaque was inspired by a series of calamities that recently shook Anthea da Silva’s world – among them, her mother’s death, her partner’s cancer diagnosis and the ongoing invasive treatment. The adage, “Listen out for the whispers before you have to hear the screams”, has resonated for the artist like a series of farcical explosions.  

Anthea da Silva’s passion for life drawing and portraiture informs the layered and transparent themes in her work. X-rays, shadows and reflections, charcoal, oil and acrylic mediums map the surreal undertows and the bleeding obvious, beyond the surface of the precious, fragile, not always robust human.