Joanne Currie Nalingu | FireWorks Gallery

Artist Tabs

Selected works

FW22691 Shadow flow	FW22692 Bright light stream	FW22764 The dark cloud
FW22765 Infinite	FW22849 Dark Water Maranoa Shield	FW22850 Blood River Maranoa Shield
FW22851 Sunrise Maranoa Shield

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Bio

Born: 1964 Mitchell QLD
Language: Gungurri
Country: Maranoa River
Region: Mitchell QLD

Joanne has realised a highly charged individual style that, although instantly recognisable as Aboriginal, speaks of her journey as an artist moving within cultures. The importance of the river as a metaphor is a constant in Joanne’s painting, as this takes her back to the hardships of her early life living on the banks of the Maranoa River.

Joanne comments,
I grew up on the ‘Yumba’, out west by the banks of the Maranoa River in the 1960s. Now I live closer to Brisbane where we raised our kids and now our grandkids. I’ve always painted about the Maranoa area, the traditional designs found on shields and artefacts, the lines and colours of the river…I try to keep it simple…clean and sharp!

But Joanne also realises that these meditative interpretations of the Maranoa River are not geographically specific and they refer to a broader analogy, “… that river is really a symbol for all rivers, for all people”. Her paintings depict water as a universal life source via a powerful yet peaceful linear treatment.

In 2008, she won The Wynne Prize at AGNSW and has been a finalist numerous times in the Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Award. Joanne’s work is held in numerous private and public collections including Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art and the Museum of Brisbane.

Story/Statement

The Ancient PRESENT I

The Ancient PRESENT is an organic travelling exhibition module that will be shown in varying formats and venues in Australia and the USA.

The artists: Tommy Yannima Pikarli Watson (c.1935-2017) has an established national and international reputation; his career is still being fully fathomed. Joanne Currie Nalingu (b.1964) is recognised in many major Australian cities is on the verge of establishing her own international standing.

Tommy + Joanne - a yin + yang coupling

Tommy Watson was a senior Pitjantjatjara elder who grew up near Irrunytju in the remote desert heartlands near the tri-state border of Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory, with little outside contact. Joanne Currie is a mid-career artist and grandmother based in Brisbane who grew up (literally) in a camp beside the Maranoa River, in Mitchell, south-western Queensland.

Despite some obvious contrasts, this pairing highlights what they implicitly share as artists. The unique works by both artists allude to perceptions of space, spatiality and time as conceptual expressions in their painting practices. Tommy + Joanne are also, in a sense, outsiders. Joanne started painting in her early twenties and continues showing across Australia with imagery drawn largely from the Maranoa River region in south-west Queensland. Tommy lived thousands of kilometres away in arid, desert country in the centre of Australia. A highly respected bushman initiated into an ancient tribal world, Tommy didn’t start painting seriously for the commercial market until he was in his mid-60s. Initially a key figure for a new remote community art centre established in his locale, Tommy soon left to go his own way in the art world, becoming an independent trailblazer amongst his contemporaries. The scope and impact of his peculiar trajectory is still being understood, his body of work yet to be proportionately examined outside adverse political interference.

DRIFT AND MEANDER (5 PANELS)
Building on her seven-panel installation Dark River Bend created for Veiled Histories at Caloundra Regional Gallery, this work wraps the corner of the wall, immersing the viewer in Joanne’s distinctive river lines. Behind these lines are subtle shield shapes, almost indecipherable, attempting to break through like a faint whisper posing unanswerable questions.

IT FLOWS
In these new paintings, Joanne has experimented with the colours and textures of her backgrounds. Deviating from flat colours or block patterns, the backgrounds layer soft, warm yellows, ochres and orange, delicately blended into the dominance of the dark base to create an effect reminiscent of evening light, apparently glowing through her signature river lines.

TRACES
This collection of highly coloured paintings have a vibrant dimension to them. Embedded Indigenous language ‘snippets’ and Maranoa shield forms have been printed as the background of her canvases providing a contrast to her hand-painted style. The works bring us to a far more contemporary reading of her life in art.

The growing complexity in Joanne’s work, its strong political resonance and its developing conceptual depth, bode well for this self-taught artist. Her process toward completion of these works includes using photographic prints of Mandandanyi shield designs with Gunggari text on the canvas (with archival inks) as a base. Over this imagery she develops a surface texture of river lines painted in acrylic. There is a new tension in these works, wrought by their new elements – they have a brittle sensibility that evokes the lack of resolution to the problems of regionally-based Indigenous peoples in Australia.

Excerpt from essay Blood River Black Water, Louise Martin-Chew 2010

[More recently, this series] sees Currie’s colour choices lift, growing more varied and vibrant, the shield patterns dominating as her surface changes direction to become swirling and circular, hovering around particular areas and opening the layer below to closer inspection.

Except from Veiled Histories, Louise Martin-Chew 2022

RIVER LINES

For Joanne, her river has a spiritual dimension. Her River Lines, represent an artist’s meditative space- her country, a place she feels compelled to keep returning to. Her paintings speak of the river as a living entity, the rippling lines of the surface mimic the flow of water, or eddies of air and light. As subtle reflections of different events in her own life, these lines merge to provide a place of contemplation for the viewer to consider their own paths.

RIVER SHIELD REVIVAL

Joanne applies her signature painting style across 2D and 3D works, referencing the movement and lines of the Maranoa River and its significance in the formation of her identity since early life. The tensions between her rippling lines at once reflect complex depths contained beneath a fragile membrane of this flowing waterway, the spiritual dimension the river represents for her, and the political tensions she sees affecting regional Indigenous communities in Australia. Juxtaposing this textural surface with underlying language and shield motifs offers insight into the deep complexity contained beneath a bubbling surface.

SENSELESS/BLOOD SHIELDS
The tag ‘Senseless’ for Joanne’s series of shiny white, or black and red, shields is deliberately discomfiting. Looking it up in any dictionary provides a litany of negativity – unconscious (as in knocked senseless), lacking mental perception, stupid or foolish, nonsensical or meaningless. However, Joanne is drawn to make artwork for powerfully positive reasons – the reaction against a problematic past a constant in her life. The word has clear resonance for her – the dysfunction of alcohol was part of the community in which she was raised and senseless is a common condition in such circumstances.

Joanne’s interest in the shield designs of her area has been a subject for her research for some years and has informed much of her work including public art commissions and commercial showings since 1994. Yet the opportunity to deliver this new series in small editions for her 2010 exhibitions is most timely.

Excerpt from Installation statement, Louise Martin-Chew 2010

Solo Exhibitions
2025 The Ancient Present, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane + USA
2024 Lifeblood, Despard Gallery, Hobart
2023 It Flows, Cooee Art Leven, Sydney
2023 River Marks, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2023 It Flows, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2020 River Marks, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2016 She Walks the Line (Part 2), FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2013 Mina Mina Maranoa, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2011 Blood River Black Water, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2011 Blood River Black Water, Despard Gallery, Hobart
2010 Blood River, Coo‑ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Bondi Beach NSW
2009 Waterline, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2009 Dark River Line, Museum of Brisbane
2007 Maranoa Lines, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2003–04 Give ’em Currie, Caloundra Regional Art Gallery
2000 The River, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
1998 Waterways, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
1998 Maranoa Country, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
1997 Joanne Currie, Griffith University, The Magazine Space, Brisbane
1993 Back to the Yumba, Mitchell Civic Centre
1993 Stories from the Mitchell Yumba, Mitchell Civic Centre & FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane

Group Exhibitions
2025 IGNITE: On Resistance, Identity & Place, Despard Gallery, Hobart
2025 Melbourne Art Fair (with Redbase Contemporary)
2024 Creek…River…Ocean, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2024 FLOW, China Cultural Centre, Sydney
2024 Land Holds Memory, FireWorks Gallery & Mitchell Fine Art
2024 Yellow Meadow, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2023 Over Thirty, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2023 Land Holds Memory, Caloundra Regional Gallery
2023 Morbid Curiosities, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2023 Halfway House, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2022 Veiled Histories: Joanne Currie Nalingu & Jennifer Herd, Caloundra Regional Gallery
2021 River Totem Revival: Ian Waldron & Joanne Currie Nalingu, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2020 Twelve Artists, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2020 Twelve Ways, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2020 Sunshine Coast Art Prize, Caloundra Regional Gallery
2020 Black & White 2020, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2019 Tattersall’s Landscape Art Prize, Tattersall’s Club, Brisbane
2019 Tjanpi Desert Weavers and Three Indigenous Women Painters, Despard Gallery, Hobart
2018 Small Mercies, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2018 Welcome Two (Thompson Street), FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2018 Tattersall’s Landscape Art Prize, Tattersall’s Club, Brisbane
2017 60 X√30, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2017 In Context, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2016 Tattersall’s Landscape Art Prize, Tattersall’s Club, Brisbane
2015 Tattersall’s Landscape Art Prize, Tattersall’s Club, Brisbane
2014 QLD Gals, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2014 Tattersall’s Landscape Art Prize, Tattersall’s Club, Brisbane
2014 Melbourne Art Fair, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne
2014 SOLID! Queensland Contemporary Indigenous Sculpture, Cairns Regional Art Gallery & CIAF
2014 Asia Contemporary Art Show, Conrad, Hong Kong
2014 Cross Over, Merricks House Art Gallery, Victoria
2014 The Long Hot Summer, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2013 Gold Coast Art Prize, Gold Coast Art Centre, Gold Coast
2013 Tattersall’s Invitation Prize for Landscape, Tattersall’s Club, Brisbane
2013 Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Awards
2012 Tattersall’s Invitation Prize for Landscape, Tattersall’s Club, Brisbane
2012 River Days, Gympie Regional Gallery
2012 Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (with FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane)
2012 Melbourne Art Fair (with FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane)
2012 Desert Winter Dreaming, Coo‑ee Aboriginal Art Gallery
2011 Stan & Maureen Duke Gold Coast Art Prize
2011 The Sulman Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales
2011 Tattersall’s Invitation Prize for Landscape, Tattersall’s Club, Brisbane
2011 Eclectica Exhibition Series, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2010 The Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales
2010 Tattersall’s Invitation Prize for Landscape, Tattersall’s Club, Brisbane
2010 Ripples on the Water: Lines in the Sand (with Kathleen Petyarre), Depot Gallery, Danks St, Sydney
2009 The Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales
2009 Tattersall’s Invitation Prize for Landscape, Tattersall’s Club, Brisbane
2008 Xmas Show, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2008 Blue: A Group Exhibition, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2008 Tattersall’s Club Landscape Art Prize, Brisbane
2008 The Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales
2008 Anzac Artists 2008, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2006 Homage to the Square, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2006 Three Large Rooms, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2006 Two Way: Artists & Mentors, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2005 The Light and the Dark III, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2005 SMOKE: Campfire Group and Other Commissioned Works, FireWorks Gallery & Despard Gallery
2005 SHOOSH! The History of the Campfire Group, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane
2005 Telstra: National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards
2004 Telstra: National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards
2004 Out of Country, QIAMEA, Washington DC & Virginia, USA
2003 Telstra: National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Awards Touring Exhibition
2003 Queensland Indigenous Artists, Grosse Kunstausstellung, Museum Kunst Palast, Germany
2002 Six Coats of Black, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2002 CHOGM Campfire Group Exhibition, Hyatt Hotel, Coolum
2002 Lines II, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2002 Urban Blackness, Noosa Regional Gallery
2002 Paddy Carroll Tjungurrayi and Campfire Group: Tribute Collection, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2001 Queensland Features, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2001 Telstra: National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards
2001 Art of Place, National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award Exhibition, Old Parliament House, Canberra
2001 Lines, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2000 Landmarks, DAR Festival, Brisbane Powerhouse
1999 Telstra: National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards
1999 The Road to Cherbourg (with Campfire Group), Global Arts Link, Ipswich
1999 Powerful Medicine, DAR Festival / Papunya Cultural Exchange
1999 Big Smoke, Coo‑ee Aboriginal Art, Sydney
1998 Telstra: National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards
1998 Art of Place, Old Parliament House, Canberra
1997 Skin and Division: Michael Eather and Friends, Brisbane City Gallery
1997 Engine: The Best of Campfire, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
1997 Brisbane vs Essendon, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
1997 Works on Paper, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
1996 All Stock Must Go! (with Campfire Group), Asia Pacific Triennial, Queensland Art Gallery
1996 Saltwater Freshwater Borewater (with Campfire Group), Regional Galleries Association of Queensland
1995 Seven Deadly Australians, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
1995 That’s Women All Over, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
1994 Blackness: Blak City Culture, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
1994 Political Posters, Brisbane City Gallery
1994 Place and Interface Touring Exhibition
1994 Knowing the Sensorium, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane
1993 Political Bedrooms, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
1993 Aboriginal Perceptions, Brisbane City Gallery
1993 Political Works, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
1993 Woorabinda Artists Conference, Campfire Consultancy
1993 Campfire Group Exhibitions, Spring Hill Baths, Brisbane
1993 A Different View Touring Exhibition
1993 Island (with Campfire Group), 9th Biennale of Sydney, Bond Store, Art Gallery of NSW

Awards & Grants
2020 Finalist, Sunshine Coast Art Prize, Caloundra Regional Gallery
2011 Finalist, Whyalla Art Prize
2010 Finalist, The Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales
2009 Finalist, The Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales
2008 Winner, The Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales
1996 Winner, Maroochydore Art Prize
1992 Winner, Maroochydore Art Prize
1992 Professional Development Grant, Arts Queensland

Commissions
2020 River Totem Revival, Royal Brisbane Hospital
2017 Ash River, Barry Nilsson Offices, Sydney & Hobart
2013 Ash River, Barry Nilsson Offices, Brisbane
2013 Dark River Lines, Mary Street, Brisbane
2007 Maranoa: Wind on Water, Brisbane Airport Commission
2006 Pathways, Design for Textiles, Artisan (formerly Craft Queensland), Brisbane
2005–06 Shield Billboard Commission, QUT Creative Industries Precinct, Brisbane
2004 SMOKE (with Michael Eather), Cooloola Sunshine TAFE
2002 Dogwood Crossing @ Miles Mural Project (with Campfire Group)
2001 Coolangatta TAFE Public Art Commission
2001 Flotilla Installation, Museum of Melbourne (with Campfire Group)
2001 Journey Tracks, Motorama Showroom, Brisbane (with Campfire Group)
1999–00 Connecting Worlds, Home Bush Bay Hotel Mural Project, Sydney (with Campfire Group)
1999 Story Bridge Abutment, Brisbane City Council
1998 Women’s Public Hospital Rest Area, Mater Hospital Brisbane
1992–95 Numerous school and public building mural projects throughout Queensland

Published Material (selected)
2010–2011 Louise Martin‑Chew Blood River, Black Water, FireWorks Gallery Brisbane; Despard Gallery, Hobart; Coo‑ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Bondi Beach NSW (Catalogue)
2007 Michael Eather The Substance of Joanne Currie, Antiques and Art in Queensland, July–Nov, p.50 (Article)
2007 Joanne Currie Nalingu: Maranoa Lines, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane (Catalogue)
2006 Three Large Rooms, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane (Catalogue)
2007 Gatherings II: Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art from Queensland Australia, Keeaira Press, Southport (Publication)
2005 Michael Eather (ed.), SHOOSH! The History of the Campfire Group, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (Publication)
2005 Dark and the Light III, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane (Catalogue)
2004 Give ’em Currie – reinventing traditional stories and designs, Namalata Thusi, Dept of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy, Q1 no.23 (Article)
2004 Out of Country, QIAMEA Travelling Exhibition, USA (Catalogue)
2003 "Art Gallery Gives Currie", Caloundra City Living, 7 December, p.12 (Review)
2003 Telstra: The National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Awards Touring Exhibition (Catalogue)
2002 Urban Blackness, Noosa Regional Gallery (Catalogue)
2002 Paddy Carroll Tjungurrayi and Campfire Group: Tribute Collection, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane (Catalogue)
2002 Lines II, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane (Catalogue)
2001 Gatherings I: Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art from Queensland Australia, Keeaira Press, Southport (Publication)
2001 Debra Aldred, Campfire Creations, The Courier Mail, Issue 18/7, p.36 (Article)
2000 Artistic Flow, Brisbane News, 26 September (Review)
2000 The River, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane (Catalogue)
2000 Joanne Currie The River, MAP, October Issue 14 (Review)
1999 Central Queensland Art Purchase, Rockhampton Art Gallery (Catalogue)
1998 Julia Ross, Cultures Unite, Brisbane News, August, p.25 (Review)
1998 David Broker, Skin and Division: Michael Eather and Friends, Eyeline, Summer, pp.24–26 (Review)
1998 Tressa Berman, Sitting around the Campfire, Art Papers, Vol.22, No.6, Nov/Dec, pp.26–29 (Paper)
1998 Rosemary Sorensen, Avenue for Artists, The Courier Mail, 28 February, p.16 (Article)
1997 Waterways, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane (Catalogue)
1997 Louise Martin‑Chew, Exhibitions, The Australian, 8 August (Review)
1997 Ken Turnbull, Conversation Gets Under Your Skin, Business Review Weekly, 8 September (Review)
1997 Leone Stanford, Two Worlds: Michael Eather and Friends, The Review, September (Review)
1997 Margo Neale, Skin and Division: Michael Eather and Friends, Brisbane City Gallery (Catalogue)
1997 Saltwater Freshwater Borewater, FireWorks Gallery (Catalogue)
1997 Campfire Group Survey, FireWorks Gallery (Catalogue)
1996 All Stock Must Go! (with Campfire Group), Asia Pacific Triennial, Queensland Art Gallery (Catalogue)
1995 That’s Women All Over, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane (Catalogue)
1995 Seven Deadly Australians, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane (Catalogue)
1994 Blackness: Blak City Culture, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (Catalogue)
1993 A Different View Touring Exhibition (Catalogue)

Collections
Artbank
Bega Valley Regional Gallery
Brisbane Airport Corporation
Caloundra Regional Gallery
Department of Premier & Cabinet, Queensland
International Education Services, Brisbane
Mater Hospital, Brisbane
Museum of Brisbane
National Gallery of Australia
Queensland Art Gallery | GOMA
Queensland Museum
Queensland Children’s Hospital
QUT Art Museum
University of Queensland Art Museum
Rockhampton City Gallery
Private collections across Australia, Europe, the USA & UK