BRISBANE. The Queensland Art Gallery’s extraordinary collection of contemporary Aboriginal fibre art is being highlighted for the first time in a major exhibition at GoMA open until October 18.

Queensland Art Gallery Director Tony Ellwood said the 350 works in ‘Floating Life: Contemporary Aboriginal Fibre Art’ demonstrate the inventiveness of more than 100 established and emerging Indigenous artists from every state and territory.

‘This exhibition taps the Gallery’s collection of Aboriginal fibre art, which is the most extensive of its kind in geographical scope and conceptual range, to reveal the importance of fibre within Aboriginal culture.

‘In addition to 275 works from the Gallery’s collection, the exhibition includes the largest ever display of 75 Morning Star poles from Arnhem Land, 55 of which have been generously loaned from Bandigan Art, Sydney,’ he said.

Mr Ellwood said works by well-known artists such as Gulumbu Yunupingu, Shirley MacNamara, Yvonne Koomatrie, Lena Yarinkura, Regina Wilson and Jonathan Jones were amongst those featured.

‘The exhibition is extraordinarily diverse. It demonstrates the range of fibre art making techniques and approaches, with most works having been created over the last two decades,’ he said.

‘In addition to nets and traps, woven mats, conical baskets, spirit figures and dance objects, ‘Floating Life’ also features body adornment, painting and highly coloured balmarra (thread-cross dance frames).

The exhibition has been curated by Diane Moon, Curator Indigenous Fibre Art, QAG, who has developed the Gallery’s collection since 2003 in close association with Australian Indigenous artists and their communities.’