The Pilbara’s Aboriginal art centres provide more than paintings.
THE value of sales made by Aboriginal art centres in Australia has grown considerably in recent years, doubling to $30 million in 2019-20 on the figure a decade earlier.
That figure is from a recent draft Productivity Commission report into the nature and structure of markets for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts.
It’s a change Faraday Boydell has noticed in her role as the manager of Spinifex Hill Studio in South Hedland.
“In the past five years there has been a massive shift in terms of the level of attention and the degree of awareness among the public towards Aboriginal art centres,” Ms Boydell told Business News.
“Not only are people starting to value Aboriginal arts and culture in its own right and as something to celebrate, but people are also starting to know names, faces and places.”
Spinifex Hill Studio–started in 2008 by a group of artists in collaboration with Perth-based not for profit FORM Building a State of Creativity–opened a project space last year as a place for artists to show their work at exhibitions and events.
Ms Boydell said the new project space was indicative of the changes under way.
It recently opened an exhibition featuring the work of the late artist Nyaparu (William) Gardiner, who painted at Spinifex and won best work on paper at the 36th Telstra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2019, which will go on to tour regionally throughout 2023 and 2024.
The art centre has recently gained further support with corporate giant BHP committing $1.3 million in funding across two years to build the capacity of the artists and studio staff, provide training to young people, and to focus on art production, business management and curation.
In Perth, some of the art painted at Spinifex and other art centres in the Pilbara has been on display at the Art Gallery of WA since March in the ‘Tracks We Share: Contemporary Art of the Pilbara’ exhibition.
Featuring 200 works by more than 700 artists, the exhibition is a collaboration between the gallery, FORM, Aboriginal art centres Cheeditha Art Group, Juluwarlu Art Group, Martumili Artists, Spinifex Hill Studio and Yinjaa-Barni Art, as well as independent artists Katie West, Curtis Taylor and Jill Churnside.
Interest from overseas buyers is growing, too.
Ms Boydell said there had been an uptick in interest from international curators and collectors recently.
“We are starting to see some major institutions overseas and some really important private collectors start to pick up some really wonderful pieces and invest in Australian Indigenous art and culture,” Ms Boydell said.
According to the Productivity Commission report, while most artworks are sold domestically, a growing number are sold to international buyers.
Annual overseas sales have doubled, starting from a small base of $700,000 in 2012-13, to almost $1.4 million in 2020-21.
Amy Mukherjee manages Newman-based art centre Martumili Artists, established by Martu people living in the communities of Parnpajinya, Jigalong, Parnngurr, Punmu, Kunawarritji, Irrungadji and Warralong.
Ms Mukherjee said she believed the increase in activity was tied to growing cultural awareness, especially in the wake of the global Black Lives Matter movement.
“I think the biggest trend is growth in interest,” she said.
“Sometimes that translates to sales, but actually it comes from an increased national political awareness about Aboriginal culture and a desire for corporations, customers, members of the public to learn more, to engage with Aboriginal culture and communities.”
This cultural movement had been adopted by some in business, requiring them to apply for reproduction licences to use Aboriginal art in their company documents and merchandise.
Wendy Hubert is an artist at Juluwarlu Art Group.Photo: Claire Martin
“Companies that want to reproduce artwork images on corporate documents or maybe on staff uniforms, reconciliation action plans, perhaps producing products or merchandise [are] collaborating with Aboriginal artists on a range of products,” Ms Mukherjee said.
This view was supported by the Productivity Commission report, which found the amount Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists received from licensing agreements increased by more than 50 per cent between 2019 and 2021.
A very public display of a licensing agreement was on show earlier this year at light festival Vivid Sydney, with the work of artists from art centre Martumili projected onto the sails of the Sydney Opera House.
Ms Mukherjee said the pandemic also played a role in lifting the profile of art centres.
WA’s closed borders led more local tourists to visit the state’s north, with an increase in traffic driving past Martumili on the way to the popular destination of Karijini.
“Last year we had a really busy tourist season and that was a lot of Perth travellers coming up and exploring the regions, which was great,” Ms Mukherjee said.
The pandemic created the opportunity for Martumili to move artists’ work online, meaning people could buy art from home without having to travel to Newman.
Arts centre model
Art centres work as agents for the artists they support.
Many art centres are members of the Indigenous Art Code, which provides a set of rules and guidelines for dealers to ensure ethical practices and fair treatment of artists.
Designed to curb the selling of fake Indigenous art, the code signals to consumers that the art they are buying offers artists a fair deal and is authentic.
Art centres operate by taking a cut of sales to pay for staff and facilities, as well as the paints, canvases and other equipment, transport, and lunches.
Artists painting at Martumili, for example, receive a minimum of 55 per cent of the sale of their works with the rest put back into the centre.
The Productivity Commission report found artists who sold art through art centres in 2019-20 had an average income of just over $2,700, meaning most artists use the money as additional income.
The centres run on a mix of funding from operations, sponsorships from local shires and businesses and government funding.
However, as art centres become busier, the average pool of government funding has declined.
Average funding to art centres declined from $243,000 in 2015-16 to $227,500 in 2020-21.
The National Indigenous Visual Arts Action Plan 2021-25 includes an additional $25 million in funding to provide infrastructure upgrade projects and fund employment opportunities in up to eight art centres, as well as several other initiatives to train Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff.
Ms Mukherjee said Martumili was well supported but the organisation’s work was growing.
“Martumili is a larger example of an art centre because it covers seven communities rather than one, so there is some evaluation that could happen based on service delivery,” she said.
Ms Mukherjee said the funding model did not consider the social benefits of art centres, such as the assistance they gave in booking appointments, and providing meals and transport.
“Aboriginal art isn’t just about art, it’s about culture, it’s about family, it’s about connection, it’s about socialising in community, it’s about traditional ecological knowledge,” Ms Mukherjee told Business News.
“I think technically we are a commercial agent, but we are delivering a community service that is much broader than that and we are creating a cultural and familial space for communities, which is perhaps something that is not considered in funding agreements.”
More than art
One of Martumili’s regular artists, Marlene Anderson, said she painted every day to share stories of country.
“It makes us happy,” she said.
“When you have your children you teach them, and when they have their children, they teach them so they can keep the culture going.”
In Roeburne, Juluwarlu Group Aboriginal Corporation started its own art centre, Jululwarlu Art Group, in 2016.
The group previously worked with elders to record oral histories, preserve Yindjibarndi language, map country and produce books and other media to tell their stories.
“The elders worked with us to create artefacts, sculptures, and this was the birth of Juluwarlu Art Group,” chief executive Lorraine Coppin told Business News.
“They are putting paint to canvas; they are putting stuff from country as a weaving, which will create something that share stories.”
The group supports more than 30 artists, enabling them to create works and sell them so they can earn an income while celebrating Yinjibarndi culture.
It has a retail space, Ganalili Centre, in the town of Roeburne that sells art, as well as offering learning opportunities for tourists.
The group has non-exclusive Native Title over much of their country, and in 2017 was awarded exclusive Native Title over their land, which includes Fortescue Metal Group’s Solomon Hub mine.
Ms Coppin said the group didn’t want to be known as an art centre, but instead a cultural interpretive hub built on a model of creating enterprises to keep the family together.
“Some of them might not be artists, but some of them are working with the linguists, anthropologists or teaching the young ones,” she said.
“It’s the model we would like to keep because it keeps how Aboriginal society is; we always are together, and we run as a community.”
Ms Coppin said the group had experienced growth in recent years but had only just scratched the surface of what they wanted to achieve.
She said people were showing a lot of interest, but the group needed to tap into it.
“It’s up to us to curate that,” Ms Coppin said.
“It’s important that Aboriginal people are learning and creating this avenue.”
She said the group planned to pursue other art forms to increase the sustainability of the business, such as creating more merchandise, like sheets and textiles, that could be sold.
However, Ms Coppin said the biggest challenge was choosing what projects would be financially viable.
• Business News was recently hosted by FORM Building a State of Creativity on a tour of the Pilbara.
