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Enola
2004 is the most recent video installation by Australian
artist Susan Norrie, and adds to the Gallery’s expanding
collection of moving-image works. The work’s title refers to
the
Enola Gay
, the World War Two B-29 bomber which
dropped the atomic bomb on the Japanese city of
Hiroshima in 1945. The installation shows footage from a
Japanese theme park of world architecture in miniature. It
reflects on the past and present, as well as a potentially
doomed future.
A panoramic painting of Brisbane’s skyline by Robert
Brownhall was the first work acquired under a new program,
which commissions new work every two years by young
Queensland artists for the Gallery’s Collection.
Afternoon
storm
,
Brisbane
2005 is a modern interpretation of the late
nineteenth- and early twentieth-century genre of capturing
picturesque vistas of a sprawling city. The three-metre-wide
canvas depicts a view from Parliament House looking north
east across the Brisbane River towards the Gallery and the
Gallery of Modern Art under construction.
Acquisition highlights for contemporary Asian art during
2004–05 included Sara Tse’s visually haunting and delicate
cast porcelain clothing works
Trans/form no.9.1
and
no.10.2
, and
Dress no.66
,
no.68
and
no.69
, all 2003. Ah
Xian’s porcelain
China China – bust no.63
2002 was another
significant acquisition for the year. This brings the total
number of works by the award-winning artist now in the
Gallery’s Collection to seven.
The acquisition of several major works by Korean–Japanese
artist Lee Ufan continued the Gallery’s policy of acquiring
substantial bodies of work by key artists. Three significant
works by the artist were donated and the Gallery acquired a
further nine. They included the drawing
Push up
1967, four
From line
1981–82 drawings, a
From point
1972 drawing,
and five lithographs from
In Milano
1992.
Wei Dong’s
Snapshot
1999 was another important
acquisition for the contemporary Asian collection. The work
engages with a tradition of Chinese landscape painting and
Western figure painting, and critically addresses the
changing history of China in relation to contemporary
globalisation, growing consumerism, and the decline of
communism.
Several key acquisitions expanded the Gallery’s holdings of
Australian art.
The Yidinyji Rainforest people are best known for their
shields and swords, and in the major suite of shields,
Bama
(The people)
, Michael Boiyool Anning represents his Yidinyji
ancestors. In this work, Anning honours them as being
inspirational to his revival of traditional cultural forms and
themes.
Maningrida artists are renowned for their fibre art, a key
collecting focus for the Gallery, and Lena Yarinkura is one of
the most innovative contemporary artists from Arnhem Land.
The artist’s
Ngalyod (Rainbow serpent)
2004 is a dramatic
realisation in sculptural form of this important totemic figure,
and adds significantly to the Gallery’s developing holdings of
this genre of Indigenous art-making.
James Eseli’s spectacular
Ubirikubiri (Crocodile) headdress
2004 portrays song and dance from Mabuiag Island. Dance
is regarded as the most vibrant form of contemporary
expression in the Torres Strait, and the acquisition of this
piece enhances the Gallery’s existing collection of work by
this artist.
Another key acquisition for the Indigenous Australian art
collection was
Poyarri
1988 by Sunfly Tjampitjin. Produced
before the Balgo painters developed their own distinctive
style and use of colour,
Poyarri
suggests links between the
Balgo group and other contemporary dot-painting groups,
such as Papunya.
Through the annual Foundation Art Appeal, the Gallery
acquired
Café tables
1957 by one of Australia’s pre-eminent
artists, Ian Fairweather.
Café tables
is a vibrant scene of café
life, based on the artist’s memories of travels through China,
the Philippines and Indonesia. The work unites examples of
Fairweather’s early paintings and his later great abstract
works in the Gallery’s Collection.
COLLECTION
One of the Queensland Art Gallery’s key goals is the
development, management and conservation of the Collection
to the highest art museum standards for the benefit and
enjoyment of present and future audiences. In 2004–05 the
Gallery acquired 340 art works.
AUSTRALIAN ART
ASIAN AND PACIFIC ART
top:
Susan Norrie
Australia b.1953
Enola
(still) 2004
DVD: 8:37 minutes, colour, sound, with 10 steel
and ply stools,
hand-painted, ed. 2/6
10 stools: 37.9 x 45 x 29.9cm (each)
Purchased 2004 with funds from the Estate of
Lawrence King in memory of the late Mr and Mrs
SW King through the Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation
Robert Brownhall
Australia b.1968
Afternoon storm, Brisbane
2005
Oil on canvas
Diptych: 122 x 330cm (overall)
Commissioned 2005 with funds from the
Queensland Government