School of Art Graduate Wins National Telstra Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award

From Rite to Ritual by Danie Mellor (PhD - Visual Arts 2005) - winner of the Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art AwardANU School of Art graduate, Danie Mellor (PhD 2005), has been awarded Australia’s prestigious Indigenous art prize – the national Telstra Art Award, at the 26th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award for his work titled From Rite to Ritual.

Measuring 2.07m x 1.54m the mixed media on paper artwork features intricate layers of imagery with Aboriginal people and Indigenous animals placed against a setting that is littered with elements of European culture.

From Rite to Ritual explores the encounter and fragile co-existence between Indigenous and non-Indigenous, or settler cultures. In this case the meeting place is the interior of a Freemason’s lodge and the work highlights the importance of secret and public ceremony and initiation in both cultures; it speaks of the challenges of settlement, and the differences in spiritual enactment and belief.

Artworks in this year’s exhibition are featured on Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory website and will be on display at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory until Sunday, 25 October 2009.