Aboriginal Artist - Rosella Namok

Rosella Namok describes herself as a ‘modern artist’. Her painting engages traditional themes but she explores them in her own distinctive style, bearing the markers of a modern sensibility. The ‘culture and stories’ of which Namok paints revolve loosely around several narratives. They are stories of her social and physical or natural environment featuring events such as hunting and fishing expeditions, weather patterns of rain and wind, or the stories of Kapay and Kuyan, the two opposing moieties that govern marriage relations in Namok’s Ungkum community. These tribal moieties were brought together into one community under the governance of the Christian missions that were established in the Lockhart River area in 1920. Also apparent in Namok’s work are themes relating to traditional knowledge of country including kinship relations as well as tribal law in relation to the both the individual and their community. In fact, it was her wish to explore and establish her correct lineage, her ‘right place’ within the whole, that initially sparked much of the imagery that takes shape throughout the entire scope of Namok’s art.

She emerged as a member of the Lockhart River ‘Art Gang’ that burst onto the contemporary art scene in the late 1990’s. Its formation following upon a successful program developed to encourage education and employment in an area that is quite remote from the larger cities of Queensland’s far north. The initiative brought the community together in its concern to provide vocational and enterprising opportunities for their young people. Well managed funds, regular art excursions and a succession of visiting artist’s (including Guy Warren, Garry Shead, Adam Rish and cartoonist Michael Leunig) propelled some members of the popular art classes into the league of professional practise, with Namok emerging as a leading figure. Printmaking, under the guidance of Fran and Geoff Barker, played a significant role in Namok’s artistic development, the consequences of which can still be seen in her layered approach to the use of colour. An element of the unexpected intrudes as different layers have subtle effects on each other, refining inherent oppositions.