Gallery director and former FANZA trustee Rebecca Hossack returned to her native Australia last week for the 2023 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards in Darwin. It was a glorious week celebrating the strength and richness of Australian indigenous culture – a culture that the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery has supported and promoted over the last 35 years.
It was a week of art exhibitions, satellite events, fashion shows, and award ceremonies, of happy encounters with old friends and exciting new artists.
Among the winners at this year’s awards were several artists with close links to the gallery. Owen Yalandja, who had an exhibition of his yawkyawk sculptures at the gallery in London in 2011, was presented with the Telstra NATSIAA Bark Painting Award for his work, Ngalkodjek Yawkyawk. Fibre artist Rhonda Sharpe (pictured below), whose soft-sculptures are currently on view in the gallery, won the Wearable Art Award at the fourth annual National Indigenous Fashion Awards.
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