Source: PRESS RELEASE
Art Association CATHRINE presents the exhibition From a Continent to an Island, curated by Nadine Betrhelier and co-curated by Eudes Ajot from Paris, under the auspices of the Australian High Commission and the Deputy Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Cyprus. The exhibition will take place at the Centre for Visual Arts & Research (CVAR) and will be open to the public from 21 January 2023 to 18 February 2023.
The exhibition From a Continent to an Island includes approximately seventy paintings on bark, all from the important Aben Collection. The works are the creations of Australian Indigenous people from Arnhem Land and allow us to engage with their art and their universe, interspersed with mythology and Gods-Ancestors.
Painting on bark is used by the Indigenous people as a means of perpetuating the founding myths of their culture, as each clan and each family from Arnhem Land carries the responsibility of passing on the founding myths to the next generation. In the paintings of the Aben collection, we see Gods-Ancestors and stories from the Dreamstime - the time when the Gods-Ancestors came to Earth and shaped it before bequeathing it to humans.
However, as Indigenous people have a simultaneous responsibility to protect their culture from the "uninitiated", their art is not made for every eye. As the curator of the exhibition points out, much of what we see in the exhibition may appear decorative to our "uninitiated" eyes. Nevertheless, the exhibition offers us the rare opportunity to become familiar with the universe of the Indigenous people of Arnhem Land and perhaps to "initiate", to some extent, into it.
The exhibition forms part of the 50th anniversary of Australia-Cyprus diplomatic relations.
Information:
Tuesday – Saturday | 9:30 am – 5:00 pm
Centre of Visual Arts and Research (CVAR)
(free admission)
Organized by Cathrine Artistic Association Under the auspices of the Deputy Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Cyprus and the Australian
High Commission in Cyprus
