The 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial welcomes their visitors to an atrium where is presented Lorraine Connerly-Northey’s Narrbongs.
At first sight, the work’s dimension (height 251cm) emphasizes its role of monument. The material’s humbleness (corrugated metal) contrasts with the artist’s intention to build a memorial honouring her Waradgerie origins. The two main influences come from distinct traditions, one Aboriginal and the other more intercultural.
The first reference is obviously the Aboriginal Memorial. How a sculpture of this size and combining cylinder volumes does not referring to the highly known commission curated by Djon Mundine? They also share this attraction to the simple beauty of the oldest (the most authentic?) forms. But when the curator chooses the male sculpture, the female artist prefers the forgotten women works such as the dilly bag. The other differentiation is the artist’s reference to its culture suffering of disinterest. The bricolage composing this sculpture materialise also romanticism perception and, in a certain way, melancholia (aesthetically quite close to the Anselm Kieffer’s work).
The second tradition deals with the widely movement of the non-artist. In France, we called it Art Brut or Art Modeste, but they are mainly the individual works by strong personalities who creates arts in a non-professional purpose. There are many examples of these individualities but the most famous remains Facteur Cheval and its Palais (Hauterives, France) or Simon Rodia and its Watts Towers (Los Angeles, USA). Narrbongs and their works have the same qualities, as they are simple structure made with raw materials collected and constructed without architecture. All these monuments are neither sculpture nor architecture but they just reflect the strong will of their creators to express themselves feelings with arts.
More info:
Narrbong by Lorraine Connerly-Northey at unDisclosed