Black Sky asserts sovereign visions of blackness – from the deep wounds of mining up to the expanses of the night sky. Far from neutral backdrops, skies are spaces that hold life and story, incite creation and dreams, and witness political action and environmental destruction. The exhibition traverses unlikely spaces of resistance and cultural continuation – from creation stories across horizon lines, to ambiances of the night club, to the atmospheric effects of mining, to creatures of flight, to the black of the Aboriginal flag as a symbol of sovereign solidarities across skies.Black Skyis an unending, eternal horizon of Indigenous life. The Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art will present major works from Julie Dowling and Tracey Moffatt, which position the sky and horizon in relation to human figures. Julie Dowling’s intimate painted portraits capture everyday relationships within a longer purview of ancestral deep-time, while Tracey Moffatt’s rarely seen series Up in the Sky, 1998, presents ambiguous narratives in an outback setting. The prominent skies and harsh light under which various scenes unfold, raise the dramatic stakes and scale of these very human dramas.

 

Black Sky is presented as part of the Perth Festival Visual Arts Program, supported by Wesfarmers Arts.