ngaay ngajuu dhugul birra (to see my skin broken)

NGAAY NGAJUU DHUGUL BIRRA (TO SEE MY SKIN BROKEN)

Galerie Nathalie Obadia is very pleased to present ngaay ngajuu dhugul birra (to see my skin broken), the fourth exhibition by Brook Andrew since the Australian Wiradjuri artist began his collaboration with the gallery in 2014.

As Brook Andrew has expressed: "The paintings and sculptures in this installation create a mise-en-scene of continuing culture and new imaginings, presenting the complicated and broken processes of accessing and piecing together our objects held in museums. This installation creates a safe space and exercise in healing and radical self- love in a ceremonial scene that is free from the mistreatment, misinterpretation and romanticism inflicted upon our cultures. The paintings are inspired by patterns from our marrara guulany (tree carvings/dendroglyphs) and along with the totems and entire mise-en-scene present the power of process, regeneration, and this complex journey. The sculpture garru (magpie) is based on my personal totem. You will notice it appears to be broken, like other sculptural and painted elements in the installation which are cut, collapsed, broken, or opened-up. The concept of broken skin refers to, Aboriginal 'skin connections' (kin and family), and the literal broken skin of bodies and of our objects in museums. My act of assembling for this new body work is about active healing and finding new ways of creating ceremony today. These totem figures are also inspired and linked to characters in the theatre script 'GABAN' (strange) which will be performed this September at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin.

My installation challenges current methods of displaying Aboriginal cultural materials in museums which are presented out of context from a vast geographical range. These displays misrepresent the cultural and linguistic diversity with a deep lack of understanding of Aboriginal society and ongoing practices - museums often represent our cultures as broken and incomplete, as if we and our cultures are broken and have little contemporary importance."

ngaay ngajuu dhugul birra (to see my skin broken), is inspired and driven by the complexities of collisions between the lived experiences of Wiradjuri culture and Indigenous ways of knowing with the institutionalisation of the museum and public space. A mise-en-scene ceremonial space of totems, relics, mandalas in ceramic, wood, neon, stone and marble welcome us along with eight works on canvas from the Seeing Time series.

The works on canvas in the Seeing Time series evoke the question of time, its perception and its manipulation. With contemplative and reflexive vocations, the space of the painting opens for an experimentation, an inscription in this infinite measure. For Artforum (January 2022) Helen Hughes also observes that «this turn to abstraction may reflect the sense in which, in 2021 as opposed to earlier in the artist's career, all the world's museums now appear to be striving to decolonize, thereby allowing Andrew to zoom out and capture a bigger picture». The black and white Wiradjuri motif is directly inspired by the artist's Aboriginal (Wiradjuri) heritage; the abstract form speaks to the strength and continuity of this cultural practice that has permeated his work since the beginning.

The spatial and temporal disorientation of this entire scene is volatile, the supports of certain elements slip away to consider new juxtapositions and assemblies of deeply personal histories that Brook Andrew binds together.

Galerie Nathalie Obadia — 24 MAY - 23 JULY 2022

GALERIE NATHALIE OBADIA 
91, rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré - 75008 Paris
Tuesday - Saturday 11 am - 7 pm
+33 (0)1 53 01 99 76