Proud Barkindji woman Carmel Mackie received the 2024 CPAC Aboriginal Scholarship Prize for her work Nautilus as part of the 32nd Mil-Pra AECG Art Exhibition at the Casula Powerhouse Art Centre on Saturday August 3. The award ceremony was opened with a warm Welcome to Cabrogal Country by proud Dharug Elder and community leader Aunty Lyn Martin.
Nautilus, Carmel Mackie (Free motion embroidery, 2022)
The theme of this year’s Mil-Pra AECG Exhibition was ‘Blak, Loud and Proud – Keep the Fire Burning’, reflecting the 2024 NAIDOC theme. In an impressive field of adult entries, Carmel’s work offered a powerful take on the theme, with its spiral imagery and delicate materials embodying strength, movement and fragility. The judge’s comments emphasised the way Nautilus captures “the complexity we face in simultaneously moving outwards to connect with Country, culture and possibility while also building home, sanctuary and strength. The work captures the inspirational power and challenge of figure along with its comforting warmth and security at the centre of the spiral”.
The Nautilus is an Ancestor whose family predates the dinosaurs by several million years. It builds its beautiful spiral shells from the elements in its environment, creating safety and shelter as it journeys through time and space. In other words, the spiral encapsulates both time and space – the fragile journeys we take. Its fragile beauty in this artwork reflects the importance of connecting and reconnecting to culture and Country. The sense of simultaneously always coming home and always reaching out reminds us that we are always storying and spirally between ourselves and the Ancestors – always working to spark new fires burning blak, proud and safe as we work to heal Country, build community and maintain connections.
Carmel has a well-established practice and the scholarship prize, sponsored by DSMG in partnership with David Harding and Nabila Ansari and supported by CPAC offers funds and curatorial support towards a solo exhibition at the Casula Powerhouse in 2025 along with mentorship from a leading First Nations artist.
The Mil-Pra AECG Art Exhibition is open at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre until 25 September.
Exhibition by 2023 Scholarship Winner Bree Riley
2023 winner Bree Riley is also exhibiting at the CPAC as part of the current exhibition (until 29 September) in a remarkable show Wiray Midhang (Not Alone). Working with Dharug artist Leanne Tobin as her mentor, Bree has not only developed her technique in her prize-winning work from last year, but also developed new approaches that reflect the feelings she has in watching the flow of rivers in Country. Her exhibition invites “people to feel the movement and the life Country breaths through my work. I want to transport them to my Country. To feel the way my Country speaks to me and hear what it has to say when you listen deeply. We are never alone.”
Darnan (unbreakable), Bree Riley (Acrylic on canvas, 2024)
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