A great-grandson of iconic Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira has won the national $100,000 Ramsay Art Prize with a double-sided self-portrait which depicts English explorer Captain James Cook on the reverse surface.
Vincent Namatjira, who lives and works at Indulkana in the far north west APY Lands of South Australia, won the Art Gallery of SA prize for contemporary Australian artists aged under 40 with his work titled Close Contact.
The work, in acrylic paint on plywood shaped with a jigsaw, marks a change in direction from Namatjira’s previous paintings on canvas, and used reference sources including E. Philips Fox’s painting Landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay, 1770.
Namatjira, who was also a finalist in this month’s Archibald Prize, said winning the Ramsay would allow him to “‘continue to make more ambitious work” and reach new audiences.
“I also hope to use my position to create opportunities for other young artists in remote indigenous communities,’’ he said.
I can honestly say that becoming an artist turned my life around and now I want to be a leader and a role model for the next generation of young artists.
Competition judges Russell Storer, who is deputy director at the National Gallery of Singapore, contemporary artist Richard Lewer and Dr Lisa Slade, assistant director at the Art Gallery of SA, were unanimous in their decision.
“Vincent’s work stood out for its directness and clarity, but also for its wit and complexity,” Mr Storer said.
“Close Contact is a startling self-portrait combining painting and sculpture, and as such represents a major shift in Vincent’s practice.
Cook is represented as a persistent shadow of the artist showing how indigenous and white Australia are inextricably linked by history, but also in the present. Vincent’s thumbs-up stance expresses resilience and humour, crucial strategies for resistance and survival.”
Through his distinctive paintings, Vincent’s great-grandfather Albert Namatjira changed not only the way white Australia viewed its landscapes, but also the way the nation saw its indigenous peoples.
Albert Namatjira was born in 1902 on the Hermannsburg Lutheran Mission, 130km southwest of Alice Springs, and taught to paint European-style watercolours by visiting Melbourne artist Rex Batterbee.
In 1957, the government granted Albert and his wife full citizenship, meaning they could vote, enter a hotel and build a house where they chose – a decade before similar rights were granted to the rest of the Aboriginal population.
Born in Alice Springs in 1983, Vincent Namatjira was sent to live with foster families as a child when his mother passed away in a car accident.
After finishing high school, he returned to Hermannsburg to join his extended family, began reconnecting with his Western Aranda heritage and started painting in 2011.
The Ramsay Art Prize is held every two years and was established in 2017, supported in perpetuity through the foundation established by late SA arts philanthropists James and Diana Ramsay.
Art Gallery of SA director Rhana Devenport said the Ramsay Art Prize set out to elevate and accelerate careers of young contemporary Australian artists.
“Vincent Namatjira is at a pivotal point in his career and his work Close Contact represents a new way of working for him,” she said.