Pollon Art, Agency, and Mimili Maku Arts present Shadow Sites, featuring new works from multi-disciplinary artists Steaphan Paton (Gunai/Monero) and Robert Fielding (Western Aranda/Yankunytjatjara). This exhibition is in partnership with New City Arts and on view at Welcome Gallery.
Detail of Robert Fielding, “Echoes #2 (Kapi Pilki Kapi Ilu),” 2018, video installation. Image copyright and courtesy of the artist.
New City Arts' Welcome Gallery
114 3rd St. NE, Charlottesville, VA 22902
First Fridays
March 6, 5:00-7:00 PM
Artist in conversation with John Edwin Mason from 7:00-7:45 PM
Gallery Hours
12:00-4:00 PM, Monday-Thursday
Sponsors
This Welcome Gallery Exhibit Opening Reception is sponsored by The FUNd at CACF, supported by an Enriching Communities grant from the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation.
Exhibition Statement
The exhibition looks at the ways in which these artists work across a range of different media — sculpture, video and photography — to explore themes that are central to their creative and cultural practice. The exhibition considers these artist’s complex and evolving cultural identities and histories, unbraiding notions around colonialism, race, belonging, and Country.
On view as a part of Charlottesville's Spring 2020 Aboriginal Art Trail, visitors are invited to attend exhibitions featuring work by aboriginal artists on view at Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of UVA, The Fralin Museum of Art, Second Street Gallery, and the Rotunda Upper West Oval Room.
About the Artist
Robert Fielding (1969-)
Western Aranda/Yankunytjatjara
Lives and works Mimili community, Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands, South Australia
Robert Fielding is an Afghan, Western Aranda, Yankunytjatjara artist from the Mimili community, Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands (APY Lands), South Australia.
A descendant of the Stolen Generation, Fielding grew up in and around Port Augusta. In 1998, Fielding moved his young family back to his father’s homelands, the Mimili community in the APY Lands, where he has lived since.
Fielding began his artistic career as a painter and an arts worker in the Mimili Maku Art Centre in 2005. Fielding found that a camera had more potential to convey his concepts while marrying together Aṉangu and Western ways of being, echoing his personal experience of living in both worlds.
Fielding’s practice includes film, printmaking, photography and installation. He has twice won the Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award for a Work on Paper in 2015 and 2017.
Steaphan Paton (1985-)
Gunai/Monero
Lives and works Melbourne, Australia
Steaphan Paton is a Melbourne-based artist, member of the Gunai and Monero Nations, he grew up in rural Victoria. His work explores colonialism, tradition, concepts of race and conflict. Influenced by his home country, ‘Gippsland’ and his experiences, Paton uses painting, sculpture, installation and video to articulate his worldview.
Paton’s work has been exhibited at major Australian art institutions including; Colony: Frontier Wars at NGV Australia (2018), Sovereignty at Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (2016), and Murruwayguat the Art Gallery of NSW (2015).
Image copyright and courtesy of the artist.
