Image above: John Wolseley in his print workshop with one of the works destined for The National 2021 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney.
The work of John Wolseley will be featured in this year’s iteration of The National: New Australian Art
The National presents the latest ideas and forms in contemporary Australian art, curated across three of Sydney’s premier cultural institutions: the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Carriageworks and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. The curatorial vision for the exhibition represents a mix of emerging, mid-career and established Australian artists living here and abroad.
At the MCA, thirteen artists consider diverse approaches to the environment, storytelling and inter-generational learning through their works. Drawing on natural materials and processes, as well as found objects and detritus, they explore notions of planetary caretaking, and our relationship to place in an era of dramatic change.
This particular group of works about the Termite mounds of East Arnhem land will be the last of the five shows in which Wolseley has collaborated with the great Yolngu artist, Ms. Wirrpanda, who passed away earlier this year. Symbiosis in nature, revealed through the co-habitation of diverse creatures (termites, ants, birds and their eggs) in the termite mounds of North-east Arnhem Land is an enduring motif in the exhibition, demonstrating patterns of connection and the balance of all things in the natural world.
The exhibition opens at the Museum of Contemporary Art on 26 March and is current until 22 August 2021. For more information, click here.