In 2024, Moa Arts exhibited a new series of woven objects and printed works by Paula Savage. ‘I am interested in everything. Weaving, lino printing, tie-dying, drawing, carving, and jewellery making. But my works are all based on my heritage, the cultural laws and customs we still practice today.’
William Mora Indigenous Art Centre Program
The William Mora Indigenous Art Centre (WMIACP) provides a fully funded exhibition package for Indigenous-owned Art Centres to participate in Melbourne Art Fair. It aims to promote and provide curatorial and commercial opportunities for Indigenous Australian artists working on Country and in communities across Australia.
Discover past participating art centres and artists below.
Moa Arts
Paula Savage, 2024
Moa Arts is the trading name of Ngalmun Lagau Minaral, which means ‘our island’s design’. It is an Indigenous owned and operated Art Centre on Mua Island in the western cluster of Zenadth Kes – the Torres Strait. Through the centre’s work, they keep Mualgal traditions and Zenadth Kes arts and culture strong for everyone.
Munupi Arts & Crafts Association
Leon Russell Black, 2024
Drawing inspiration from their natural lush environment and Tiwi creation stories, Munupi Arts & Crafts Association presented works by artist Leon Russell Black, “I only paint with natural ochres: red, yellow and white on black background…..in my paintings I can tell everything about my life in Pirlangimpi, paint all these things in the Tiwi way, in my way, my own way.”
Munupi Arts & Crafts Association is located along Melville Islands north-western coastline at Pirlangimpi (Garden Point). The Centre gives local artists an opportunity to proudly celebrate Tiwi culture through traditional and contemporary mediums.
Papunya Tjupi Arts
Candy Nelson Nakamarra, 2024
100% Aboriginal owned and directed community arts organisation Papunya Tjupi Arts is based in Papunya, the birthplace of the Western Desert painting movement. The Art Centre supports emerging artists and some of Australia’s leading contemporary painters.
In 2024, Papunya Tjupi Arts presented works by Candy Nelson Nakamarra, depicting the Kalipinypa Water Dreaming story. Nakamarra has a distinct, evolving style employing bold, contrasting colours and layered drips, drawing and outlining to create sophisticated, sought after contemporary works.
Wik & Kugu Arts Centre
Keith Wikmunea, 2024
Wik & Kugu Arts Centre is located in Aurukun, a small remote Aboriginal community on the north-west coast of Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. The Centre is renowned for its iconic milkwood sculptures produced by the men of Aurukun, and the women are well-known for ochre and acrylic paintings.
At the 2024 Fair, Wik & Kugu Arts Centre presented sculptural works by Winner of the 2023 Telstra NATSIAA Art Award, Keith Wikmunea. As an artist, he is passionate about passing on his creative and cultural knowledge to future generations.
Buku-Larrngay Mulka
Wanapati Yunupiŋu, 2022
Wanapati Yunupiŋu’s paintings are multilayered, mapping intergenerational knowledge of fire and water and the way these elements are understood and used together. Hidden within the metal geographies of his work, animals of land and sea move across their landscape.
Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre is the Indigenous community controlled art centre of Northeast Arnhem Land located in Yirrkala, a small Aboriginal community, approximately 700km east of Darwin. In 2022, Yunupiŋu’s presentation was exhibited in collaboration with Tolarno Galleries.
Jilamara Arts & Crafts Association
Jonathon Bush, 2022
Johnathon Bush’s ochre paintings present a unique combination of Tiwi culture and his personal views on global politics, family and cultural heritage. He adopts some painting techniques that reflect jilamara (Tiwi body paint design) and combines them with representations of political figureheads, Catholic imagery that relates to the colonial experience of the Tiwi, stories of colonial crimes against Indigenous people or adaptations of old anthropological images of First Australians.
Established in 1989, Jilamara Arts & Crafts Association is owned and governed by Tiwi artists from Milikapiti community on Melville Island. The Tiwi Islands, Bathurst Island & Melville Island, are north of Darwin and have been home to Tiwi people since parlingarri (a long time ago).
Milingimbi Art & Culture
Helen Ganalmirriwuy, 2022
Helen Ganalmirriwuy’s work is, in many ways, language. Colours and form are representative of self, of lineage, of ritual. In each of Ganalmirriwuy’s mindirr – woven objects – members of her family and their traditions are told, their stories communicated through the steady dialect of skill.
Milingimbi Art & Culture is an Indigenous-owned, non-profit organisation which supports Yolŋu culture and sustainable livelihoods for artists on the island of Yurrwi (Milingimbi), in North East Arnhem Land. It is a social, cultural and economic hub for the community.
Waringarri Aboriginal Arts
Ben Ward, 2022
Ben Ward’s work feels like a kind of intimate portraiture of Country, viewed as if through a kaleidoscope with geometric fractals telling of a vast landscape. When Ward speaks of Country and creates work in its image, he speaks of tradition born from the land, that the land belongs to all, and that all we need will be provided for.
Waringarri Aboriginal Arts is a living, growing art centre celebrating the uniqueness of Miriwoong cultural identity. It is located in the heart of Miriwoong country at Kununurra in the Kimberley region of northern Australia.
Warlayirti Artists
Patsy Mudgedell, 2022
Patsy Mudgedell’s work is an exercise in connection; the stories told through her work are meant for everyone. She is deliberate in the way she holds space for people to experience their own narrative within her paintings, to create a universality through a strikingly contemporary style.
Warlayirti Artists have a reputation for vibrant colour, bold brush-strokes and distinctly individual art works. The Centre is located in the community of Wirrimanu (Balgo) in the southeast Kimberley, on the edge of the Great Sandy and Tanami Deserts in the Kutjungka region of northern Western Australia.
