Artwork: *Camping Along the Creek*, Natalie Austin

July 18 - September 16, 2022

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Opening event: Friday, July 29, 6-8pm

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Opening hours: Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm

Where: The Mill Exhibition Space, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta

Cost: Free

Disability access is available via our Angas St entrance, access the pedestrian ramp on the corner of Gunson St. The Mill has concrete flooring throughout and a disability toilet. View more in-depth information on our accessibility page.

This SALA The Mill presents a new solo exhibition, Memory of Water, by Antikjrita woman Natalie Austin, supported by Wangkangurru woman and independent curator Marika Davies. Natalie speaks of the artists connection and relationship to Country as motif within her life. Natalie traces her life from child, teen, mother and now grandmother and the meaningful role that Country has in her understanding of self and community. She says ‘painting is my passion and gives me peace.’ Natalie has worked with curator Marika Davies to develop this exhibition, an inaugural collaboration between The Mill and regional South Australian Aboriginal artists.

Memory of Water is presented in partnership with Ku Arts, City of Adelaide and Human Kind Studios. The exhibition has also had generous support from Ursula Halpin at Port Pirie Regional Art Gallery.

The exhibition is mostly about Coober Pedy, where I come from and where I grew up. I usually do my artwork with the white dirt, the brown dirt and the colours of the opal. These paintings also have the wildflower colours that come out after a big rain, it’s very pretty.
The first painting is about water, about the creek. But the group of paintings are about connection to the country.
My inspiration is my mother, she was with the Coober Pedy kupa piti kungka Tjuta who protested the nuclear waste dump in the 90’s. She’s been painting most her life and she’s 89 now. She taught me to paint, and it is something that I share with my daughter and my niece. They sit and watch me paint and do their own thing.
Marika Davies is a great help, she’s given me the opportunity to exhibit including in Malka [arts prize at Yarta Purtli, Pt Augusta]. She is a lovely person to work with. It helps to have someone to push me in the right direction. I paint and she organises things to get my paintings out into the word.
I’m excited to be able to show the works in Adelaide. I’m happy to have the works shown and share about my country and the colours and the stories.
Natalie Austin’s ‘Memory of Water’ is an important exhibition. The paintings are about being on Country and being with family. She shows the opal fields and the desert, as well as the desert flowers that bloom after rain. You can see the white throughout all the paintings, which is the colour of the stone layer that holds the opal in the earth. The colours that Natalie has used are the colours in the veins of the white stone, the glistening of the opal. This is part of Natalie’s Country, her family’s Country. Connection to Country is not just what is on top, its also what is underneath. People think of Opal as being about making money, but it is so much more than that. Digging the holes to make mines disrupts Country.
Natalie’s mum is 89 this year, and has been a major influence on Natalie. I would love to see her be able to come and see Natalie’s exhibition, and see what Natalie learned from her on a wall in a gallery space, and the sense of pride that both Natalie and her mum would have. Natalie took on the skill of painting from her mum and has been painting for close to 30 years. That’s how kids learn, from their elders and parents. Your parents are your first teachers. Natalie is a grandparent now and for her children and grandchildren to be able to see her first solo show could inspire the next generation of Natalie’s family.
As a curator it is important to be able to showcase our region, Port Augusta and the mid North. Natalie has been painting for a very long time and she is really happy to have a solo. Audiences can come in to The Mill from anywhere and realise that this artist is just a 3 or 4 hour drive up the road from Adelaide. You can see the painting, the colours and the shapes in the gallery, and you can visit the landscape and see the story of the Country.
It’s really important to see First Nations Artists share their work. There are brilliant artists out there that should be recognised. After contacting Natalie to invite her to exhibit, the first issue was getting materials to her. It’s a low socio-economic region and artists can’t just go into the shop and buy quality materials. Ursula Halpin at Port Pirie Regional Gallery helped with some materials and Ku arts came with more. Access to materials is an issue throughout the region, there are artists that have artworks that they’re ready to make, but they don’t have access. And often what they can get are cheap canvases that easy break, which really devalues the artworks. This region produces world class artworks, and It’s such a great thing to work as an independent Curator with artists, and collaborate with a gallery like The Mill, and with support from Ursula and Ku Arts to create opportunities to upskill and make the incredible works they are ready to make.
I knew of Natalie when I was 16 and just starting out. Then I connected with her last year, I am now 42 and I finally get to work with her- it was just meant to happen!
Artist Natalie Austin was born in Port Augusta, South Australia, in 1964 and grew up in Coober Pedy. She is a descendant of the Antikirinya, Southern Kokatha and Yankunytjatjara peoples. Austin was taught to paint by her mother and has been painting for nearly thirty years. Her work was featured in the Malka Art Prize at Yarta Purtli in 2022 and 2020. She has contributed to the Tarnanthi Art fair at Tandanya from 2017-2019. Other exhibitions include 'Our Mob’ at the Adelaide Festival Centre and the 2008 'Ripples in the Sand’ exhibition at the Port Augusta Cultural Centre, ‘Coast to Coast’ at Fischer Jeffries for SALA, and the Sydney International Art Fair 2019.
Curator Marika Davies is a proud Wangkangurru woman of the Simpson Desert, Birdsville area. She is an emerging artist and independent curator currently living and working in Port Augusta, South Australia. Her interest in pursuing a career in the art industry developed organically through her love and passion for art and its history, and wanting to give back to her community in Port Augusta who nurtured her passion and cultural growth. She is intent on a curatorial career continuing her history of work within the community.
Marika is a talented storyteller, finding new ways to tell stories through curating, painting, jewellery making, photography, radio and film. Currently Marika is undertaking a mentorship with Tarnanthi Festival Director Nici Cumpston OAM and Port Pirie Regional Art Gallery Director Ursula Halpin.
In 2018 and 2019, Marika undertook a curatorial internship for VIETNAM: ONE IN, ALL IN, where she actively assisted throughout project development, gaining experience that helped to springboard her career as an emerging curator.
In 2019, Marika attended the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair as part of the Aboriginal Curators Program and Symposium.
Marika attended the Port Augusta Emerging Film Development Program workshop and was co-director / co-writer for Mulka Man, which was screened at Nunga Screen, 2020. She co-wrote Dusty Feet Mob: This Story's True and filmed Full Circle | Marika Davies | indigiTUBE.
More recently Marika undertook a Podcasting for Beginners Workshop an initiative of the South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC), Country Arts SA and Riverland Youth Theatre, delivered by experienced First Nations mentor Raymond Zada. In September 2021, Marika’s podcast was aired on the ABC radio. Fresh new podcasts by South Australian First Nations storytellers | indigiTUBE