FireWorks Gallery’s 2024 exhibition calendar opens with two vibrant exhibitions of painting and sculpture. The mezzanine gallery is saturated with vibrant shades of canary yellow, warm mustard and gold in a whimsical group show titled Yellow Meadow. On the ground floor, works by internationally renowned Mother/Daughter artists from Utopia, Abie Loy Kemarre and Margaret Loy Pula are displayed in Motherline II.

Russian abstractionist Wassily Kandinsky said, “YELLOW has the special capacity for rising higher and higher, for reaching heights unbearable to the eye and to the spirt.” Yellow Meadow brings together a buoyant collection of 23 older and new works by represented artists Alick Sweet, Anthony Lister, Fiona Omeenyo, Ian Waldron, Jennifer Herd, Joanne Currie Nalingu, Laurie Nilsen, Matthew Johnson, Michael Eather, Michael Nelson Jagamara, Miles Allen, Pat Hoffie, Phil Gordon, Rosella Namok, Samantha Hobson, Stephen Hart, and Yvonne Mills-Stanley. Local arts enthusiast and collector, Dr Daryl Hewson has selected these works for what is intended to be a light-hearted if not spiritually uplifting, fun exhibition! In Hewson’s poem ‘Ode to a Jacket’ accompanying the show, he describes yellow as “A splash of emotion, no explanation, a rush of exhilaration…”.

Michael Nelson Jagamara’s Travelling Stories features a vibrant yellow ground, heightened further with silver-leaf patterning, creating a shimmering, almost effervescent composition. Begun in 2008 it was posthumously completed in 2022. A quirky new work included in Yellow Meadow is by Sunshine Coast based sculpturer Miles Allen. Crafted from luminous yellow road sign, the sculpture depicts Mt Beerwah and the surrounding pineapple farms.

Downstairs, Motherline II presents new land and body scape works by Margaret Loy Pula and her daughter Abie Loy Kemarre depicting a complex continuity of traditional stories. Perhaps best known for her Awelye (female body designs) paintings, Abie Loy Kemarre’s work shows small, rounded squares and rectangles pieced together like a vast puzzle, many of these markings are adorned with white dots typical of Aboriginal desert painting.

Margaret Loy Pula uses a refined colour palette to depict her primary subject matter Anatye/ Bush Potato which is vital for her Anmatyerre people for both its spiritual significance and as a reliable food source. Pula’s visual language utilises fine dots, rhythmically applied in intricate webs to create expansive patterns that generate a calmness and wisdom seemingly drawn from nature.

FireWorks Gallery Director Michael Eather comments, “Unveiling brand new works from the desert as well as local studios has been a joy! Hosting avid art collector Daryl Hewson to sift through gems from our vast stockroom was very entertaining”.

Image - Dr Daryl Hewson at QAGOMA 2006 Photograph by Alex Chomicz