Vincent Namatjira in conversation with Lisa Slade and Bruce Johnson-McLean

- Good afternoon, everybody. My name's Nick Mitzevich, the Director of the National Gallery, and it's my great pleasure to welcome you here at the Fairfax Auditorium for a really great, engaging talk. I'd like to begin by acknowledging that we meet here on the lands of the Ngunnawal and the Ngambri people, and we pay our respects to elders past and present and acknowledge that the National Gallery has an important responsibility to elevate First Nations perspectives here in Canberra, across the country, and around the world. We are really heartened that today we can bring some great friends together. Many of you will know that my nine years in the Art Gallery of South Australia was such a wonderful experience in elevating First Nations perspectives. And I feel proud that our Art Gallery of South Australia colleagues are here today with the extraordinary artist Vincent Namatjira. "Vincent Namatjira: Australia in Colour" is an extraordinary exhibition that's part of the Tarnanthi festival presented by BHP at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Soon to achieve 10 years, the Tarnanthi festival has really contributed enormously to the understanding and nurturing involvement with hundreds of thousands of people in Adelaide and also around the country, with many projects extending beyond the confines of Adelaide to help celebrate and help nurture greater understanding of First Nations art. Vincent Namatjira is one of this country's most extraordinary and challenging artists, in that he takes everything that he sees and he gives us his unbridled and raw interpretation of the world, be it himself, his family members, his history. Things that capture his attention in music, in politics, in life seem to pour out with great passion. Vincent Namatjira has such an extraordinary way of capturing the irony of the world we live in today with a sense of passion, compassion, and clarity. I was very fortunate. More than a decade ago, Lisa Slade and Nici Cumpston took me to Vincent Namatjira's studio as part of the Tarnanthi research. And Vincent instantly was someone that we could see was someone that the Art Gallery of South Australia wanted to engage with directly, both by adding his work to the collection and working towards major projects. Vincent Namatjira works at the Iwantja Arts studios in Indulkana in the APY Lands, both a place that is so isolated but also so engulfing in the community. It's interesting that it's both a place that you have to travel great distances to get to, but a place that feels so close when you're in there because of the passion. And the work of the artists and the community really envelop you. It's my great pleasure now to introduce today's panel. Vincent Namatjira, OAM, an artist that has really captured the imagination of the nation and beyond. He's represented in all major collections in Australia, and the National Gallery feels privileged to look after some of the largest numbers of works in public hands. He's an artist that has exhibited across the country, and we feel proud to work with the Art Gallery of South Australia to show his exhibition as a second venue here. Our second speaker, Dr. Lisa Slade, is the Assistant Director of Artistic Programmes at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Lisa is a curator, educator, and writer, and has extensively written on art history. Her passion is bringing together the parallels of colonialist art and the work of First Nations artists. She has been an important influence in elevating the Tarnanthi festival at the Art Gallery of South Australia and enlivening art history to thousands and thousands of people around the country. We're also joined by Bruce Johnson-McLean, the Assistant Director of Indigenous Engagement here at the National Gallery. Bruce's most recent curatorial project is a partnership in Sao Paulo with the Sao Paulo Museum of Art in Brazil, showcasing First Nations art in "Indigenous Histories," which has just closed in Brazil and will open soon in Norway. They will join us now. So if I could ask our panel to take their seats. And I just wanna also, while they take their seats, acknowledge the Artistic Director of the Tarnanthi festival, Nici Cumpston, a powerhouse who's led the Tarnanthi festival for now more than a decade. Nici's ability to work across the country has been one of the key ingredients to elevating the Tarnanthi festival as one of the most important First Nations events in our calendar. Please now join me in welcoming our three panellists, Vincent Namatjira, Lisa Slade, and Bruce Johnson-McLean. Thank you very much.

- Hi, everyone. It is such a delight to be here. Nick, thank you for that very generous and very fulsome introduction. It is a great honour to be here on Ngunnawal and Ngambri country today. I have come to you today from Kaurna country, and I know that Vincent, of course, is joining us from Yankunytjatjara land as a Western Aranda man. My name's Lisa Slade, and as Nick said, I'm the assistant director, and I've had the great honour of working very closely with the team here at the NGA, but also with my colleagues, Gloria Strzelecki and Nici Cumpston, at the Art Gallery of South Australia, on this exhibition. Most importantly, though, this is an exhibition that has been really led by Vincent Namatjira. This is an exhibition where the artist has been in the driving seat curatorially. Curators in the room might feel little bit scared about that idea. Curators often like to think of themselves as kind of custodians of collections and of making sense of exhibitions, but it's our philosophy, through Tarnanthi really, that you can only do that when you're working hand in hand with the artist. And in this instance, it's Vincent who has led the process. Can I get a hands-up indication of who has actually seen the exhibition here so we just have a sense when we talk through it? Okay. So 69% of the audience have seen it, Vincent. I wanna start by asking Vincent about the exhibition. I've just seen it here for the first time, just flown in today. So I've just seen it here for the first time. And I'd really love to ask you, Vincent, about the show. And maybe if you can talk about your role in the exhibition. 'Cause you've played such an important role in helping us work out how to show your work.

- Well, with this exhibition here at Canberra, the National Gallery, I wanted to bring something for the rest of Australia to see, especially from where I'm from. The hard times, the good times. It's a beautiful country. But I love it here in Canberra. That's why I wanted to have an exhibition here in Canberra.

- And some of the decisions around how the work is shown came directly from you. So when we started to work on the show a couple of years ago, we made some broad selections, sat down with Vincent, and then he drove the selection of works in the exhibition, which of course includes the important works that are now in the National's collection, works in the Art Gallery of South Australia's collection, et cetera. But even things like the wall colour. Talk to people about what you were really like, "We're gonna do it this way. "This is what we're going to include."

- Well, with the wall colour, the red, black, and yellow is of course the Aboriginal flag. Represents the Aboriginal flag. So for me to have that wall installed in this gallery here, it's like me bringing the bush to the big smoke.

- There's a long history of the bush coming to the big smoke. And for Anangu, this is a well-trodden path. I'm guessing that most of you are probably locals, so let me give you a picture of how important Canberra is for Central Australians. Central Australians have long made their way to Canberra, sometimes overland, to make sure that their voices are heard. I see this exhibition as a manifestation of that same political will. So you have this idea that Vincent's voice is heard. It is only Vincent's words that adorn the walls of this exhibition. It's only Vincent's voice that you hear in the show. And in the moment that I had to walk through, I overheard some very beautiful conversations between some of you where you were reading those words together. You so powerfully, with both brush and language, speak to us about the importance of who we are and where we are right now and of the work we need to do, Vincent. You do that in paint, but I wanna kind of hone in on a couple of key works. This is slightly tricky to do when you're not standing in the exhibition, so forgive us and travel with us, yeah? I wanna start with the work that the National Gallery owns, which is the work, "Australia in Colour." Such a powerful body of work that it's the namesake for the exhibition itself. Tell us about that work a little bit.

- Well, the work of "Australia in Colour," why it's titled "Australia in Colour" is my reference of Australia, the place we live in, in the past and in the present. Yeah, just wanted to just say, "Australia in Colour," it's like we are all equal in Australia. No matter where you're from, no matter what you do, or what background you're from or what heritage you're from, we are all Australian. That's why I come up with a name to say "Australia in Colour."

- There are a few entertaining honorary Australians in there. Jimi Hendrix is my favourite in the mix. Among the suite are some really important historic figures. And your capacity to look back, to think about the present, and then to move forward is really something that defines your work. Your great-grandfather is in this exhibition too. I bet you never imagined that you'd have a exhibition with your great-grandfather, but you've made that happen. I'd love you to tell everybody about how that came to be.

- It came to be when we actually came for a trip to Canberra, and I seen the War Memorial. And at that time, they took me downstairs to see a network of, just a group of art of my great-grandfather, Albert Namatjira. With Albert Namatjira, he paints wonderful watercolours, landscape, where I paint broadened pictures, portraits, figurative, abstract, and bold with acrylic. He chose his path where I choose mine. With the same name.

- Vincent was really keen to focus in on the early works of Albert Namatjira. The story of Albert is often skewed to focus on 1936 and the exchange between the wonderful Rex Battarbee, watercolorist, and Western Aranda man, Albert Namatjira. It's often skewed to focus on that moment. But what we now know, of course, is that Albert Namatjira was an artist before that moment. And he was working specifically in punu. He was working with pyrography. He was drawing with fire onto objects crafted predominantly from mulga, or acacia aneura, objects that were custodial, ceremonial in some instances, but important cultural objects. He understood then how he could communicate through art. So, working, the transition to watercolour came very easily. Interestingly, in this show, in the works that you see in the show, Vincent has selected from the collection here. The works that you see in the show are skewed to those early works. And you see, we were talking about it a moment ago, Bruce, the very, very, probably one of the very first watercolours that your great-grandfather made. And it shows that kangaroo. And if you look over to the cabinet, you'll see the kangaroo on the boomerang. And then you look back, and you see the kangaroo on that early watercolour. There are other people that have been influential for you. I'd love you to talk a little bit about Mr. Pompey.

- Well, Mr. Pompey, or should I say Kunmanara Pompey. He is my father-in-law, a well-known tjilpi. Tjilpi is the word we call old man. He's an elderly man. He is my father-in-law, and he taught me how to do dot painting traditionally. And I called that dot painting, "Warle." Warle is called country, home, land. And he taught me that, and his daughter, my partner, invited me to the art centre to paint at the art centre. And that's where we reconnected, me and my partner. And now we have three wonderful daughters. Yeah.

- Vincent just said, "I better turn off my phone so the girls don't call." Not unusual to get a call from the girls.

- It's just because... When dad's away, they're always ringing me. And, yeah, they need to understand that dad is really busy. Yes. He has a new path now, yes. And a long path, yes.

- So there are two really important influences. When I say influences, I don't mean that the work's derivative in any way. It's entirely Vincent Namatjira's. But there are two important men in the story. Of course Albert is one of them. And it's when Vincent returns after he's no longer in the care of the state, when you return as a young man at 18 to Western Aranda country that you really connect with the story of Albert, and you really kind of, in a way, meet. Even though you never really met your great-grandfather, you kind of meet him in that sense. And then you end up travelling south. So Western Aranda country is west of Alice Springs, then you travel down south from Alice Springs southeast across to Anangu country. Yankunytjatjara country, and particularly where you live in Indulkana, is the most fascinating place. 'Cause it's quite close to the Stuart Highway, so there's a lot of influence that happens and has always kind of happened in that place. And at the same time that Vincent's book has been launched, in the same period, a book about the art centre there, which is called Iwantja Arts, has also been launched. And I would really encourage you to have a look at it. I had the honour of being able to think about what's different about this place, and I think your work is a really good example of what's different. Stockmen sit alongside musicians in your work. Tell us about that a little bit.

- Well, back at community, when I'm in the arts centre, especially with the old tjilpis, the old men, they like to listen to Slim Dusty, Hank Williams. Yes, and Paddy Williams and all these kind of fellas. Yeah, it is just the young fellas that also listen to like hard rock music. I'm one of them. I'm a rock fanatic. Yes. I only put the rock and roll on loud. I just put the headphones on when the art centre is fully loaded with 30 artists, sometimes 29 artists, or just maybe 10 artists, and it gets a little bit loud. We have two sides in our centre, the lady's side, the men's side. And we just paint all together in one art centre. And with this art centre, we just listen to country, rock, and sometime to gospel. The old ladies listen to gospel, the old men listen to country, the young ones, rock.

- I've previously described Iwantja as one of the most dynamic, arguably the most dynamic art centre in the world. Let's just not think about, restrict that statement to Australia. What happens within a few square metres in that space is nothing short of remarkable, and some of the most significant careers are emerging and have emerged already in that space. So the work of Kaylene Whiskey. Kaylene Whiskey works just in the adjacent space to where the men paint, where Vincent paints. And I wanna just acknowledge that Jeremy Whiskey is here with us today too. Palya! Great to have you in the house. And what happens there is that this heady mix of paint, music, inspiration, Jukurrpa, so big ancestral stories all are brought to bear. There's a great image here on screen of Vincent making his work. Couple of slides back, there was a painting which included Slim Dusty, and that was a work that was made en plein air, or out in the bush really. That was painted in Indulkana Ridge. You've increasingly kind of connected with that landscape.

- It was painted on the country. I took the canvas out, I actually put it on the troop carrier, took it out to the little camp outside the community, not far, and just plant it down there where it's very quiet and just try to get the experience of the old man, what it might be like to paint the way he did. Yeah.

- So beautiful. That makes me think about your Rex Battarbee. Your Rex Battarbee is a guy called Ben Quilty, I reckon. And there's a work in the show which is a collaboration with Ben. You led that collaboration, though, because you took Ben to Tjoritja. You took him to the Western Macs, and you had a chance to be there on your country. Tell us about that.

- Yeah, one time I decided to take Ben, Ben Quilty, another artist, out to where one of my favourite great-grandfather's location was where he paints. And I took him out there. We had a swag. We was camping out on the tent, and just camping at a little creek there, creek bed. And there was a lot of rangers, everything there. And, yeah, that was just a special place until one time this wind started to stir up a bit. And then they see these flashes of lightning everywhere, and Ben just got, whoa, let's get frightened. Yeah. And my manager, he was there at the time, he just dropped us off, and he just went back to Alice Spring just for a little while. Yeah. And he left me and Ben out there. And by the time that happened, he went back. He was all safe and sound while me and Ben had to put up with this wild storm coming in. There was a lot of flashing everywhere. And Ben said to me, "Did you stir up the serpent," "the rainwater serpent?" Dreamtime, yeah.

- [Lisa] He really felt the power of country when he was there with you.

- Yeah, he's in it, yeah.

- And it's interesting that that beautiful line of Rwetyepme, or Mount Sonder, has come through your work more now. And it's also, of course, in the works of Albert Namatjira when you go. So when you go back in, have a look, trace that line of country, that beautiful blue often painted by Albert and yourself as a kind of blue line. You see it in one of the works that I'm giggling just even thinking about because one of the power, I think you use humour in a way that few artists do or ever have. Humour is your weapon. I know art is your weapon, but humour is also your weapon. And one of my favourite paintings is one that we've been lucky enough to acquire for Adelaide, which is the new king on country. And it's a painting of Charles looking a little bit weary, I must say. And he has Rwetyepme behind him. Tell us about the royals. Tell us what's going on there. Here he is. Here he is waving away. I think you should all wave back actually.

- It goes right back towards Albert Namatjira when he became the first citizen of Australia and also receiving the Coronation Medal from the Queen. And he anointed and made Sir Albert Namatjira. My ambition is to receive the Coronation Medal also and made a Sir Vincent Namatjira.

- [Lisa] Onscreen is this wonderful, wonderful work which speaks so much of your humour and generosity. The queen is holding, offering tjala, To you.

- Honey ants, yes.

- And you are offering maku to her.

- Maku, we call witchetty grub, tjala, honey ants.

- And there's this moment of exchange, which I just think encapsulates the generosity of your work because you are painting these works for Black and white Australia in a way to help us, I think, move forward. So this painting, to me, is a very, very kind of symbolic work and it reminds me of the kind of double-sidedness that often runs through your work. And there's one major sculpture. You could argue that quite a lot of the works, the sculptural, particularly the wonderful collaborations with Tony Albert with those pop-up books. But there's also one sculpture that has a recto and a verso. So it has two sides. It's a painting and a sculpture at the same time. Tell us a little bit. It's from the Art Gallery's collection, and it was the winner of the Ramsay Art Prize. It's called "Close Contact."

- [Vincent] It's called "Close Contact" because there's an Indigenous figure on one side, and there's a European fella on the other side. So that's why I've called this one "Close Contact."

- And that European fella, here we have it. People are doing very well, can I say, in the box with the slides. Thank you very much. Here we have it. We're looking at both sides at once, which you kind of can't do in the show. But what you can do in the show is you can see Cook and then see other renditions of Cook, and then you can see Vincent and other versions of Vincent. So here we have Cook. This Cook is taken from a painting that Emanuel Phillips Fox did. It was kind of like considered to be a bit of a national picture, and it was the landing of Cook. I call this the Diana Ross dance, by the way. It's a little bit "Stop in the Name of Love," in my mind. But Cook here with his hand out. This is played out through several of the works in the exhibition. And then you have very playfully, very playfully and powerfully turned this on its head, and you've got this kind of swagger where you've got your thumbs up. Tell us about that. What does that mean for you?

- Well, this is a part of the... Well, just based on Botany Bay where Cook landed. And he invaded Australia, and he didn't see Indigenous people there at the time. They was pushed aside while he put his flag up on our soil. So that's why I put this, changed it around. "We here stand strong, deadly. "We always here number one." And Cook is like that. "No, you need to slow down. "We are here, we're gonna put this name, "we're gonna name the country."

- The Aboriginal flag recurs. So I feel like that's your response to Cook's call, if you see what I mean. That's your retort. And I feel like the thumb is almost like a kind of flag in itself. It's a semaphore, right? It's a sign where you are going, "Hang on a minute, this is my place, "this is Aboriginal land." And, once again, on screen on queue, a wonderful work that shows just this idea of this double history, these stories and how they all coalesce, how you do this wonderful time travelling for us to bring it all together. What about the collages? I think thinking about history, the MCA has that series which are in the middle room, the wonderful series there and "The Royal Tour." And you can buy that by the way. You can buy everything in the shop, but you can definitely buy a reproduction of that too. That body of work, tell us about that. How did you go working... 'Cause you work in paint. Tell us about working with pictures and paint at the same time.

- Well, with painting and pictures, the pictures that I paint are people. These are real people. Definitely. But with my paint, I'm playful with the paint with this real figure. He lived, he died. He lived, he remains. Still with us today. And with my great-grandfather, Albert Namatjira, he is always watching me, always. When the stars come out, there he is.

- Beautiful. So beautiful. And he would be so entertained, I think, this work on screen of you on the royal balcony there, part of this scene. You insert yourself into all of these moments in time and in place. And in doing so, it's more than humour, it is power, it is pervasive, it is challenging. It is... But also there is a lot of love and respect in the way that you do that. You're extraordinary, Vincent. Thank you very much.

- And also with my work, some might say that it is playful, some might say that it is funny. But to me as an artist painting these paintings for the rest of you guys to see, that's just me enjoying myself in art. Not taking seriously of what I'm gonna paint, but just me just enjoying my private life with art.

- Absolutely. I feel like it's probably time. I can see some questions emerging here, Bruce McLean. It might be time to have a bit of a conversation with you and kind of broaden it out to see what you're interested in too. Before we do that, can you thank him? 'Cause he's just exceptional. This guy. As I mentioned before, Vincent obviously was able to travel down with Jeremy Whiskey, but also with Heath Aarons, who's the art centre manager at Iwantja. And I would just encourage you to look up that art centre because the sheer diversity of art that's produced in that place will blow your mind.

- Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, everybody, for using the Slido, and please keep the questions coming through. The first questions that we have for Vincent says that, Theo, their 8-year-old son, is a big AC/DC fan and saw your portrait of Angus Young. What is Angus's and AC/DC's influence on you?

- To me, AC/DC, the word AC/DC, the band AC/DC, everything about AC/DC, to me, it's a metaphor. Yes.

- That might be the quote of the year. I know it's only the 2nd of March, but that was pretty good.

- One of the questioners is asking, well, saying that they saw the exhibition at AGSA, and what were the changes that were made for the presentation of the exhibition here at the National Gallery?

- Well, why don't you start with that one, Bruce?

- Oh, well. We've been working on this show together for quite some time. So one of the main changes, I guess, in content, most of the content is the same. But Vincent and you, Lisa, and Heath visited the National Gallery.

- Year and a half ago?

- Year and a half ago, yeah. And we got to go into the collection storage and view your great-grandfather's works without the glass. And I remember, you know, you saying how much he loves seeing, you know, the texture and everything about that, and selecting those works from the National Gallery's collection. But also we worked really closely with, you, Lisa, Nici, Gloria, the amazing AGSA team as well, to represent the show for the space here. Every version of a show is unique, and it's always great to see it in a different way. So being able to present it in these spaces in a different way was really fantastic. And I have to say, as a representative of the institution here, it's really amazing to see our spaces looking so different as well.

- Yeah, we were thrilled, the AGSA team, with the opportunity to help and work with you to kind of do something different in those spaces. So that seemed like a really great... And there's no better artist. And it's really interesting for me because you step from the Papunya space, keeping in mind that Albert Namatjira spent his later years in Papunya and had family connections there. So you step from the Papunya paintings from the 1970s into Vincent's show, and then you step out of Vincent's show and you look straight down the barrel at a big painting by Richard Bell. And in those connections, to me, the entire story of the last almost 100 years of desert art and political art is told. Some great connections to dance back and forth from the collection into Vincent's show. 'Cause so much is encapsulated, from Vincent Lingiari and Whitlam, for instance, through to the Cook paintings, et cetera. It's all captured there. One of the things that I found so exciting was not just bringing the same paintings here, but being able to work with the collection. 'Cause you were really clear that you wanted those artefacts to be included. When we saw them, you were like, "That's the important work of Albert's." Do you wanna talk about that a bit?

- Yeah, I just wanted to bring something to the table for Albert Namatjira also. This is not about me, it's about the old man. Pretty much. And I'm just his footpath at the moment. And the boomerangs I got from the museum, or, what was it? The exhibition, I think. Yeah, the museum, the gallery. I picked up the boomerangs. I chose them because, to me, I'd never seen them before in my life. Never before. It was the first time that I seen them. And when I went downstairs and someone just pulled out this big rack of a photo thing, a file thing, filing cabinet, pulled out a big rack. And I was just seeing a heap of a lot of paintings by my great-grandfather. And I just said, "I want this one and I want that one and this one." And here they are today.

- That act is a metaphor in itself, I think, and symbolic of what really needs to happen with First Nations collections across the country and the world. They need to be curated by Aboriginal people. They need to be selected, named, owned, cherished, loved by Aboriginal people. So I feel like that's a fairly radical act of curating your collection by the great-grandson of the man himself. Those early works by Albert are really interesting for me because they're connected with something that Vincent's been involved in. You've talked a lot about the tjilpi, but you also are really involved in the young men, with training and educating the young men in your community. I've seen you do the most incredible work. And one of the projects you worked on was the Kulata Tjuta project, which was the spears project, which involved making spears and teaching young men to make spears. Tell us a bit about that next generation.

- The next generation is gonna be more powerful, more bigger. I really encourage more young artists to be involved with the art and do more traditional stuff. Especially take up from great-grandfather, and take up nana, grandmother. Yeah.

- We at the Art Gallery of South Australia did not have any examples of the, I'm gonna call it the pre-Rex Battarbee influence kind of on Albert, or Albert's influence on Rex. Went both ways, of course. And I think that's something interesting for us to ponder. Some of you will have worked out why. That was because those objects were not considered to be art. So we borrowed extensively from the Flinders University Art Museum. And I'd like to just acknowledge their great help in borrowing some really wonderful works by Albert that included some coat hangers that were treated almost like boomerangs, where the surface of the coat hanger carried perentie lizards and fabulous references back to Western Aranda culture and back to country. This idea of what gets in and what gets out of art museums, what's included and what's excluded, is so interesting. And I wanna go back to my point made earlier about the importance of First Nations curatorial voices. We've been working a bit with Marisa Maher, who's a Western Aranda woman, just even to properly name some of our Western Aranda watercolours. Because many of them came into collections lacking names or having kind of generic titles. So important that we hold those words, those names for country, the real names for country in our mouths and in our minds when we are looking at these works. Titles. Your capacity to come up with a clever title is, I reckon, the stuff of legend. Those quippy little kind of short, you know, from "Close Contact" to "Australia in Colour," "Australia in Black and White." Tell us about titles. How does that all happen?

- It comes by the work of art that I'm produce. Yeah, and when I'm finished producing it, and when I see the end result of it, I gotta think of a title for it. So that's what I come up with.

- It's a bit back to the AC/DC theme. It's a bit like a song lyric. I mean, you do it in a way that I feel like you're making a song when you make a painting, that you come up with this title that's so kind of incredibly, it distils precisely what's happening. Sorry, Bruce. I forgot we're in the question bit.

- It's easy to get lost up here on stage in these bright lights.

- Too famous.

- I do wanna ask this question that's come in on Slido as well, because I think it's a really important one for everyone who goes and sees the show and this particular series. So the question is, I've seen most of your work as lighthearted and humorous, there's that element of humour and joy in it, but "Unknown Soldier" is quite different. It's very poignant. And is there some lightheartedness in it or would you like to talk a little bit more about that series and what that means?

- Well, when we came up to Canberra to see this, to the War Memorial, actually, we bring a group of artists up with us. I was one of them. And there were also others included. And we just wanted to have a look at the place, at the... What is it? The Parliament House? The Parliament House.

- War Memorial, I think.

- The War Memorial, yeah. They took us there. We seen the soldier changing of the guard and that kind of thing. And, to me, all the artists were very saddened when they seen this one fella particularly. He was by the name of William Punch. And he was, yeah, this fella, we was all very heartbroken from this fella because he fought in this country, and when he came back, he was treated with no anything. He was just pretty much pushed out of the picture.

- That's him in the middle of the second row there. That's William Punch painted by Vincent.

- Yeah, that's my painting of him. And with this material, the army surplus, I decided to paint these materials because they represent the tanks, the uniforms, the tents, the swags, everything. This material, the surplus, army surplus. And me with these figures placed on this surplus, it's like bringing them out, bringing to the forefront so they're not forgotten. Yeah.

- I think you say something about the way that they were kind of lost to history or camouflaged in history.

- They was completely forgotten. Obviously, some were buried with no names at all. And these were forgotten men. That's why I wanted to bring them to the forefront through this army surplus material.

- Many of you would know that Aboriginal men and women gained rights in service that they were then stripped of on their return. It was decades until, of course, citizenship was bestowed upon Aboriginal people in 1967. So there were decades in which people were completely unknown in the way that you describe it. But, of course, the agency, Aboriginal people signed up in numbers that far outstripped non-Aboriginal people, and they played a key role. Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara men in particular, because of the influence of the Lutheran Church and of German language, were codebreakers on the Western front because they'd come through a mission system where they knew Gothic German. So they were able to play a role that's really never been fully acknowledged. So I think this series is a really powerful reminder of how there's still a lot of work to be done in unearthing these stories.

- And if I can just add as well. You know, in my own family, you know, in immediate and extended family, many of those men who served, when they went away and fought in war, they felt that they were treated as equal. You know, the famous saying, "A bullet does not discriminate." Yet when they came back to Australia, they were discriminated against. They were shunned, they were forgotten. And it's really sad to think, you know, as a person here, that Aboriginal people found, were felt more at home and accepted in a war than they did in their own home.

- Indeed.

- So moving on. There's a question that I think is really important as well to, I guess, build on some of the things that you did say earlier, Lisa, which is, if you and Vincent could share a little bit more about the process in how you worked together to build this exhibition, you know, across from the APY Lands and Adelaide.

- Well, visits to country are really important, and Gloria Strzelecki and I travelled up to Indulkana two and a half years ago, around two and a half years ago at the important kind of beginning of this project. I'd been previously and have been since, I've been very, very lucky, but it was a really important time to see what you were doing and what you were up to. And then doing the visits here, thinking about our collection. But a lot of ruminating, a lot of thinking about... I think you think a bit like a curator because you think about what people will think of the show. A lot of artists, in my experience, are very interested, and understandably so, in their own ideas. But I feel like you understand the power of the tool of paint and how it's about communicating.

- Yeah. I see myself sometime as a curator. Yeah. Especially with the community 'cause I'm a council member in the community.

- [Lisa] That's a good point.

- And a mentor for other colleagues in my arts and all. Yeah. I'm a mentor for an old man and a young fella, I might add.

- That's brilliant. So we really felt like it was a great opportunity, given that we have a collection. Vincent was in the first Tarnanthi, he won the Ramsay Art Prize. We were the first gallery in the country to acquire the work of his great-grandfather and the first to acquire his work. So it just made complete sense that we had to do the show. And then we were like, "It can't just be in Adelaide, "it's gotta come to Canberra. "It's gotta come to the capital. "It's gotta speak truth to power." So it was a no-brainer. We reached out to Cara Kirkwood, to Nick, to Bruce and said, "Hey, guys, do you think "this is gonna be something that will work for you too?" I mean, let's face it, it's gotta go somewhere after Canberra too. I can imagine a painting trip between the king and Vincent, can't you? The king's a watercolorist. If there's anyone in the audience that has any contacts. The king's a watercolorist. In fact, I think, Nick, you guys showed some of his watercolours at some point. So can you imagine? I can imagine a painting trip, you and the king on country. His country, your country?

- With this painting of the king in the country, with that scene of that country painting, he is lost. He is sunburned, confused. Yes, he is lost. He doesn't know where he's gone, yeah, what he's doing.

- And I think that might be a metaphor too.

- Yes, yeah.

- Maybe if we brought a hat and some sunscreen. Another interesting question. Especially, you know, as a collections curator, I'm not allowed to have a favourite painting. I have to remain neutral at all times. But it's really great to ask an artist. So, Vincent, do you have a favourite painting or series of works that you've painted?

- It's a good question.

- The favourite painting that I did so far is the one with that took the Archibald Prize for 2020. That was "Stand Strong for Who You Are."

- Which is in the show, of course. It did take the Art Gallery of New South Wales, or the trustees, 99 years to award the prize to a First Nations artist.

- And also, I might add, with the King Charles, when he was a prince, he acquired one of my works to be hung in the British Museum.

- Yeah, yeah. Represented well in that collection. The connection with the Archibald is an important one because it's not just about... It's about your story, but it's also about your great-grandfather's story. And, Bruce, I know you played a key role in acquiring the work that is from the Queensland Collection that tells that story. Tell us about that.

- So, yeah, sure, I can tell you about that. So in, I think, 2013 maybe, I got a call from Beth at the art centre in Indulkana and Vincent, asking if they could come to the Queensland Art Gallery to view one of the works in the collection, the painting by Sir William Dargie, the portrait of Albert Namatjira, Vincent's great-grandfather. And I was aware of some of Vincent's very early works. One of the collectors at the Queensland Art Gallery was a really early supporter of Vincent's work. And so of course I said yes. Making sure that collections are open to Aboriginal communities is one of the most important things that we can do in these museum spaces. So Vincent came on the plane with Eric Barney and flew into Brisbane, came to the gallery, and brought with him a little calico bag with pencils, some like pastels, paper, and a mirror. And the Sir William Dargie, which also won the Archibald Prize in, I think it was '56.

- Yeah, and I think it was the first time an Aboriginal sitter.

- Yeah, that's right. So really one of the first times that there was a positive kind of reception for an image of an Aboriginal person, really, was that portrait of Albert by Sir William Dargie. And it was displayed in our Australian galleries. And Vincent got one of those little folding chairs that you have for the public programmes. You know, they're kind of ubiquitous in museums. And he sat in front of the painting, he got out his mirror. There was a Daphne Mayo sculpture in front of the portrait. He put the mirror against the Daphne Mayo. And just sat there and sketched himself in front of that work. And it was a really beautiful moment of, you know, having that reconnection with your family, with community, reengaging with history, their own history, through a collection. And so many people came up and asked, you know, who you were and what you were doing. And at that stage, we could hardly get two words out of you. You were so shy. But now you're a rockstar. That was a really amazing moment, but on so many levels and to think how that's kind of come, how far that's come now, and that this work is here in the National Gallery is really important. So, yeah, that was a really incredible moment for me as well as much as I'm sure it has been for you.

- And now that work is in the Queensland collection. Obviously it's on loan here, but it is in the Queensland collection. And that's a nice little segue to just acknowledge all of the lenders. People are not always happy to give up their paintings for a period of time. And there are major lenders. There is no artist in this country who, within a 10-year period, has been collected by every major cultural institution, apart from Vincent Namatjira. So that deserves a clap.

- I think we've got time for maybe two more of these questions. And they're short, sharp, but really, I think, interesting. So Vincent. Is there any indication you can give us of who you are painting next or what you are painting next? Or is that gonna give it away?

- [Lisa] That might under wraps, I reckon.

- It is gonna be a surprise. A surprise.

- Well done. And really about the exhibition. Vincent, can you really talk to the audience about what you would like them to take away from the experience of seeing your work?

- I just want them to take away the feeling and the spirit of an Aboriginal artist having this time to put up a exhibition here and just to be like, just respecting me and my art. That's what I want them to take away.

- [Lisa] Brilliant, brilliant.

- And we're nearing the end of time. So I'd like to thank Dr. Lisa Slade, the curator of the exhibition, for spending time with us this afternoon. Please.

- Thanks, Bruce, and thank you to you all. Congrats to you all.

- Of course especially, but I will give some context to this. As I said, when I first met Vincent, he was one of the shyest people I've ever met. He's still an introvert, so doing things like this is actually quite difficult. And this is Vincent's last public engagement with us this weekend. He's been so generous in sharing so much with us over the last few days. So on all accounts, I'd like you to just join me in thanking Vincent, not only for today, but also for sharing so much with us and enlightening us through his work.

- Thank you, thank you. I just might quickly say something. All this time in Canberra just happened so quickly. I'm having fun here. I really like it. It's peaceful and quiet. It's one of the best city in Australia, I reckon, for peace.

- [Lisa] That might have been a metaphor too.

- We'd, of course, like to thank everyone who's come today and everyone who's joined online. Please do view the exhibition, "Vincent Namatjira: Australia in Colour." For those of you who didn't raise your hand earlier, it's just around the corner. There are plenty of signs that'll guide you, and there's so much colour that you're not gonna be able to miss it. So it is really incredible. Vincent will also be doing a book signing in around 15 minutes at the gallery store. He does need a little bit of a break to recover from this. But after that, we'll be down at the gallery store. And of course we also have the amazing Up Late programme to enable everybody to come in after hours to see Vincent's show, to see the Emily Kam Kngwarray show, and also an amazing lineup of musicians as well. And tonight will be a special night. Jeremy Whiskey, who has collaborated with Vincent on the soundtrack for the projection, "Indigenous All Stars," will be playing. There's a real desert rock vibe on tonight, which will be amazing. So please do go and see it. The desert definitely has come to Canberra for tonight. So please do come back tonight, see that, and then see Vincent's amazing projection, "Indigenous All Stars." So, again, thank you, Lisa, thank you, Vincent, and thanks, everybody, for coming today, and we really hope you enjoyed it. It's been fantastic.

- [Vincent] You all look spectacular by the way.