Timo Hogan wins 50000 prize in Australias longest-running Indigenous art awards

Artist and Pitjantjatara man Timo Hogan has won the top prize in Australia’s longest-running Indigenous art awards with his painting Lake Baker.

Hogan was announced the winner of the $50,000 Telstra Award Award in the prestigious National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA) on Friday.

Timo Hogan won the $50,000 prize in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards.Credit:Philip Gostelow

The massive piece, in Hogan’s trademark largely monochromatic palette, tells a creation story with a wanampi, a serpent man and guardian of the rock hole named Kanpalkanya, and two lizard-men, a black-nosed monitor lizard and a sand goanna man.

“I am very happy to have won this award. It makes me feel strong inside. Painting is important for Anangu [Aboriginal people] to tell their stories ... I’m happy for this prize and that people see this work is important,” Hogan said.

Lake Baker is a sacred place to Hogan, his father and his ancestors, and the story he depicts holds spiritual and cultural significance.

Timo Hogan’s winning work Lake Baker 2020.Credit:Courtesy of MAGNT

Based in one of the most remote Aboriginal communities in the country, known in English as the Spinifex Lands, Hogan uses traditional dot painting as well as a palette knife. He maps out how a piece will look before starting work, using chalk to draw the basic layout.

Measuring 2 x 2.9 metres, Lake Baker 2020 is a physical manifestation of a story traditionally told through performance.

Amanda Dent of Spinifex Gum Arts Projects, where Hogan paints, says Indigenous artists often focus more on the story rather than the aesthetics of a work.

“Even though they use all different styles, they are all painting story â€" thinking about the Dreamtime characters and the layout and the spiritual, it’s an intuitive flow. They are still telling their story: story is everything. You’re the person that that Country belongs to and you belong to that Country... it’s very non-judgmental â€" the way you paint it is the way it painted,” she says.

Kyra Mancktelow’s Moongalba II, 2021, etching ink on paper, 240x160cm. Credit:Courtesy of MAGNT

It is the first year an artist from the Spinifex Lands has won a NATSIAA. The Spinifex people have a strong connection to art - paintings were used as part of their native title claim; they were the first in WA to gain rights to their land and second only to Mabo. “People always say ‘painting got our land back’,” Dent says.

The NATSIAA judging panel this year included Liz Nowell, director of the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; Dennis Stokes, chief executive of First Nations Media Australia, and Larrakia artist Denise Quall.

24-year-old Kyra Mancktelow won the emerging artist award for her print Moongalba II 2021. Hailing from Logan in Queensland, of the Jandai language, Mancktelow’s etching depicts the uniforms Aboriginal children were forced to wear in Christian missions in the late 1800s.

Other winners include Bugai Whyoulter of the Kartujarra language from Kunawarritji, WA, for the general painting award; Dhambit Munuŋgurr of the Yolŋu Matha language, Gunyuŋara NT, for the bark painting award; the late M Wirrpanda of the Yolŋu Matha language, Yirrkala, NT, for the works on paper Award; Hubert Pareroultja and Mervyn Rubuntja of Western Aranda, Arrernte language, Mparntwe (Alice Springs), NT, for the Wandjuk Marika 3D memorial award; and Pedro Wonaeamirri, Tiwi language, Milikapiti, Tiwi Islands, for the NT multimedia award.

Members of the public vote for their favourite piece online. An exhibition of the 65 finalist works will be at Darwin’s Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and be available online until early next year.

The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards are at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin from August 7 to February 6, 2022. The exhibition can also be seen here.

Kerrie O'Brien is a senior culture writer at The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

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