This selection of Annandale artists spans over three decades and focuses on the act of communicating a sense of place, particularly the unique forms and meaning that emerge from working on the periphery in one way or another. Some works allude to the complex task of preserving and promoting culturally significant knowledge, while others use painting as a form of sharing universal themes through the attempted distillation or translation of a highly site-specific experience. Notably, for almost all of the artists in Turning Points, embedding their surfaces with materials that directly reference the places in question (either through Law or aesthetic preference) plays an important role in constructing meaningful connections to the places influencing their work.

The act of painting itself or speaking aloud is what renews timeless Law for Yolŋu artists North-East Arnhem Land. The line between paintings made for ceremonial purposes and those done for the 'outside world' has been bridged by partially covering and protecting miny'tji (sacred clan designs) with figurative representation. These 'vessels of sacred ancestral forces' can then be shared in this selective way.  The bisection of one gallery space shows the totemic significance of fire (Djambawa Marawili AM, Yälpi Yunupiŋu, B. Yunupiŋu) across from others thematically dominated by water (Djirrirra Wunuŋmurra, Buwathay Munyarryun, Ŋoŋu Ganambarr, Dhukal Wirrpanda.

"The designs in these paintings are each a cryptic code that holds the text of hundreds of songs particular to that place and clan in the context of a state of water" - Will Stubbs [Yutaguma 2022]

The earliest work in the exhibition is Canopy XXXI Binary System by Brian Blanchflower and comes from the of the artist's iconic series of the same name. These monumental paintings on layered jute attempt to find a parallel with greater structures of the universe. This is an emotional, rather than analytical relationship, a personal cosmos rather than the one of purely scientific description. Blanchflower's periphery is the "limit of vision of both viewer and artist" [Generative Eye Paintings]

Julie Harris produces work from her studio in Blackheath NSW, translating her experience of natural surroundings to canvas, ceramics, glass and metal, in ways that are intimately related to body. Her evocative brushwork, undulating forms and use of natural materials - pumice, marble dust - produce surprising effects. We are intimately brought into series of static moments: red earth seen though brush and mist, or golden rays of an afternoon sun emerging between eucalypts - left to search within these worlds of uncertain beauty that Harris constructs for us.

Incorporating site-specific materials and patterns into her paintings is also second nature for Fiona Currey-Billyard. In the work Aitape, river currents of a small north-coast town in Papua New Guinea are depicted with oxidised nails, glitter, carbons and paint. The result is a complex, dark and arresting space that ebbs and flows like the waters from which it was inspired.

Also showing in our main gallery are works by notable Yolŋu artists Gunybi Ganambarr and Dhuwarrwarr Marika, Zadok Ben-David and a screening of a new video work by Laura Turner (Sydney, AUS.