Thank you for Coming to Affordable Art Fair Battersea

Bay Gallery Home thanks you for visiting us at our Spring stand in Battersea. We are returning for the Hampstead edition 8-12 May 2024. More details including the code for your VIP entry to follow.

Hope to see you there!

Invitation to Affordable Art Fair - Hampstead Heath 8-12 May 2024 stand J6

Bay Gallery Home is delighted to invite you to Hampstead Affordable Art Fair in Hampstead 8-12 May 2024.

We have curated a wide range of Dreaming stories, bush medicine and bush tucker paintings in dazzling acrylic colours, styles and sizes including works by artists we are representing for the first time.

There are lots of lovely smaller paintings heading over for those looking to enter the art market. We also curated some fabulous large paintings for statement pieces. And our ever popular Desert Dogs will be returning.

In other exciting news we are joining Art Money so you can pay for your artworks over time. This means collectors can purchase works essentially using an art credit card. At the shows we noticed people are falling in love with our artworks but cannot pay the full amount on the day, missing out on obtaining the works that beguiled them. Art Money is the perfect way to help you pay in manageable monthly payments.

Fair sales of paintings and ‘My Country’ interiors collection are very important to the Central Australian Aboriginal artists we represent. Funds from the Aboriginal art industry directly impact their social mobility, health and education.

For your VIP tickets or to gain Access All Areas (if you are an avid collector or interior designer) please book your tickets using the links below.

Art Money helps you collect art

Some of the artists we are exhibiting: Penny Napaljarri Kelly, Ada Pula Beasley, Tracy Ngwarreye Peterson,

AI impacts on Aboriginal Art Industry

Athena Nangala Granites at work on original artworks on Country in the Northern Territory. A recent work by renowned artist Felicity Nampinjinpa Robertson, Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming). Both are followed by AI generated “Aboriginal” artworks using the Night Cafe platform.

As AI slips rapidly into our lives unannounced like a thief in the night, the impact across creative industries is already being felt. New technology like Chat GPT are unleashing potentially catastrophic outcomes for many artists, including the already-vulnerable Aboriginal art industry.

A fascinating article on Crikey.com.au by journalist Cameron Wilson delves into the murky world of sacred Aboriginal artworks being bastardised to create AI artworks for sale on digital platforms including Ebay, Adobe and Shutterstock. To the untrained eye, you may not notice that images from different Aboriginal language groups are coagulated into an artwork trading as produced by indigenous artists across Australia.

What perhaps is more shocking is that AI generated images of Aboriginal paintings were used to promote a panel discussion at the University of Western Australia about the Voice to Parliament campaign. In another example covered by the Crikey article an AI image of an “Aboriginal” woman was used to promote the government-funded Mining and Skills Alliance to “raise the profile of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women”.

AI can present exciting opportunities for artists as they embrace new technology helping express their creative vision. However, the Central Desert artists we represent are drawing on their Dreamtime stories and their connection to Country, which is sacred on levels the uninitiated will never understand. But it speaks to us and you cannot replace the emotion you feel when coming across an Aboriginal artwork that crosses the divide and reaches into your soul.

Users generating Aboriginal AI fakes are failing to even acknowledge the real Aboriginal artists whose talent it is targeting. Indeed our Bay Gallery Home website and Blogs are scoured for content and regurgitated elsewhere with no heed for our copyright. What happens when AI starts devouring AI generated content? I’m not across the tech behind AI generated content but it would be interesting to know how AI protects itself from…AI. If you know please leave a comment below.

To read the Crikey.com.au article in full please click on the link below.

If you want to see to real Aboriginal artwork by Aboriginal artists creating artwork on their Country in the Central Australian desert visit the Bay Gallery Home stand D8 at Affordable Art UK Battersea in March. Click on link for your VIP tickets.

Great Yorkshire Christmas Fair - 29 November - 3 December 2023

Bay Gallery Home is bringing our Aboriginal art, soft furnishings, homewares & accessories to York for the first time after years of being supported by the people of Yorkshire in our Tetbury, Cotswolds art gallery

We are excited to share the wonderful contemporary art by Central Desert Aboriginal artists, our award-winning ‘My Country’ interiors collection and the eclectic array of fine bone china and giftware we offer as the only dedicated Aboriginal art gallery in the UK.

So many unique gift ideas await visitors to Harrogate for the on Stand 4. You can use the link below to secure your free entry ticket using the code: EXHIBITOR

Fresh out of the Central Desert: more botanical beauties!

Over Summer visit Bay Gallery Home in the beautiful town of Tetbury, Cotswolds. While here you can visit the plethora of specialty shops selling art, antiques and lots of great cafes and restaurants.

AGNES PULA RUBUNTJA, AMEROO OUTSTATION (23-CC73) 91CMX91CM

£2,000.00

Acrylic on Belgian Linen

PAMMY KEMARRE FOSTER, OUT BUSH, 92CM X61CM (22-EP329)

£2,000.00

Acrylic on Belgian Linen

SUSIE NGWARREYE PETERSON, DRY COUNTRY (23-EP115) 76CMX61CM

£1,800.00

Acrylic on Linen

DENISE NGWARREYE BONNEY, DRY CREEK BED (23-CC61) 30CMX30CM

£250.00

Acrylic on linen

BENITA KEMARR WOODMAN, DURING RAIN TIME (23-CC59) 30CMX30CM

£250.00

Acrylic on Linen

In Tetbury town centre Bay Gallery Home offers a diverse collection of Aboriginal art for sale, ideal for people seeking a unique cultural aesthetic for their home. Each artwork tells a rich story, deeply rooted in Aboriginal heritage and symbology. From bold, vibrant dot paintings to intricate, botancial pieces, our collection provides a wide range of choices to suit any interior design style. The earthy colour palettes harmoniously blend with contemporary design elements, creating a captivating and balanced ambiance. There’s plenty of bright, colourful works as well if you need a pop of colour therapy in your home.

Many of our artists are accomplished award winning practitioners with long careers exhibiting all over the world. Bay Gallery Home is a great source of younger artists paintings embarking on what will be for many important careers guided by senior community elders.

If you’d like to make an appointment call Alexandra on 07776 157 066 or DM us on Instagram @baygalleryhome email: alexandra@baygalleryhome.com

Ancient Aboriginal Trade Routes - with Dr John Gardiner

Greenstone axe examples Image courtesy of Museums Victoria Collections https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au

Our friend, Dr John Gardiner, recently sent us his theory on Aboriginal trade.  It’s a fascinating read which led me to look more into the Aboriginal trade routes throughout Australia and with the Malyasian Maccassans who in turn traded with the Chinese and along the Silk Road.

Many of my clients have read The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin so are familiar with the complexity, breadth and depth of Aboriginal trade including a greenstone axe-producing quarry in at Mount William Stone Hatchet Quarry (known as Wil-im-ee Moor-ring) outside Melbourne. (Further reading suggestion can be found below).

———————-

By Dr John Gardiner

Recently I heard about how the native guava (bolwarra) is being decimated by myrtle rust, introduced somehow from overseas.  The bolwarra has gone from thriving in the Eastern rainforests to being critically endangered in only a few years.  Such a wonderful plant too.

This got me thinking about all the other Indigenous food plants we have that are really similar to food plants in Asia and elsewhere. Finger limes, native gooseberries, native grapes, native pomegranates among many others. Experts think that many of these plants were introduced to Australia thousands of years before colonisation and have subsequently adapted to, or been bred for, local conditions.

It could be argued that the plants were already present in Australia before the supercontinent Gondwana broke up, like the family Proteaceae: in Australia waratahs and South African proteas. Or that the plants came by wind, water, or on the wings of birds, bats or insects.

Let’s look at the Kimberley baobabs. Baobabs are only found native in the Kimberley and Madagascar/Africa/Arabia. The African Creation Story of how the baobab came to be upside-down is almost exactly the same as the Aboriginal Dreamtime Story and there are linguistic similarities between African and Aboriginal baobab names. Moreover baobab nuts have high vitamin C and long shelf-life so early Arabian seafarers would provision them to stave off scurvy.

It seems entirely plausible that the Kimberley baobab, and through extension other culturally important plants, were brought to Australia by people purposefully or by accident.

There are other tantalising clues to Australia’s rich historical past. An Ancient Greek coin found in the Wessel Islands off the Northern Territory that may be from pre-fifteenth-century Tanzania, a fifteenth-century bronze Buddha found in Shark Bay. Then there is the introduction of the dingo between 4000 and 8000 years ago or maybe even earlier.

Trade never happens in one direction.  So whoever introduced these food plants I mentioned must have gained something in return. There is a papyrus from Alexandria dating to the early first-century C.E. that shows a cassowary. Cassowaries are only found in Australia and the islands immediately to its north including New Guinea. There must have been a trade route by land or sea at this time.

Indigenous Australia has made some amazing technical advances over the millennia. The returning boomerang, circular breathing, ground edge stone tools. Boomerangs have been found in Florida and even in Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb. It has been suggested that various civilisations developed them independently.

Boomerangs were not introduced to Australia: it is known they were invented south of Sydney.  The earliest known record of boomerangs in Australia is around 20000 years, similar to the age of the a 23000 year old Polish boomerang made from a mammoth tusk.

I would not be surprised if the knowledge of how to make boomerangs made its way from Australia, across Eurasia, in return for trade in the opposite direction.  Australian Indigenous Culture may have been connected to, and contributed to, the rest of the world for a long time.

Two old boomerangs, left: an early stone carved hunting boomerang, Western Australia, right : an early highly curved returning boomerang, made from hardwood, Southeast Australia, early 20th century. Provenance: Lord Alistair McAlpine (1942-2014); a British businessman, politician and author who was an advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, he was a lifetime collector in many fields including Aboriginal Art. He was an early collector of the American painter mark Rothko and could easily see the sophisticated aesthetics of Aboriginal Art and artefacts. Image and text courtesy of www.carters.com.au

Bush Medicine and Bush Tucker paintings have arrived!

To celebrate Spring, Bay Gallery Home has secured a series of beautiful botanical works from the Central Desert in time for the Affordable Art Fair Hampstead Heath. We have curated a selection of them for you here.

As the only dedicated Aboriginal art gallery in the UK, we are lucky to represent Aboriginal artists living on Country with their languages, sacred sites, iconography and Dreamtime stories in tact. The remoteness of these communities and an absence of mineral wealth has helped protect them from the much of the exploitation seen in other areas.

The art centres engaged in painting their Country, bush medicine and bush tucker do soon in order to keep their stories sacred. However, the benefits of painting sales cannot be underestimated as it is their only industry. The artwork is also an important way to share knowledge with younger generations ensuring their culture is not entirely lost.

The joyful colours, fine dot work and broad brush strokes bring the canvas to life. The paintings are imbued with the history of the Country and artists’ ancestors who sing to them while they paint. You can almost feel their spirits pulsating from these artworks in a way that can’t be achieved with Western art.

During the art fair we are happy to offer you an interiors consultation to ensure you get the right art work for the living or work space you are looking to decorate.

Hampstead Heath Affordable Art Fair is May 10-14, 2023, and we invite you to secure your ticket to see these new artworks on the link below.

New Artwork for Affordable Art Fair Hampstead Heath

Be the first to see these fabulous new Aboriginal artworks at Hampstead Heath Affordable Art Fair 10-14 May 2023 using the VIP ticket link below.

Bay Gallery Home is really excited to catch up with clients old and new at the art fair. We’re on a bigger stand with the largest paintings we’ve ever had and an array of artwork from new artists and some who’ve been walkabout for a while. Having drifted back into the art centre they are producing lots of exquisite paintings which we’ll be sharing with you.

Please share the code with friends and family if they’d like to attend.

Happy Sunday! Alexandra .

Invitation to Hampstead Heath Affordable Art Fair 10-14 May 2023

In just under a month Bay Gallery Home will be exhibiting a curated collection of wonderful Central Desert Aboriginal art at the Hampstead Heath Affordable Art Fair.

This Affordable Art Fair we have our biggest artworks yet! Look out for paintings by the incredible Walter Jangala Brown and Chantelle Nampijinpa Robertson - both clearly inherited their famous relatives talent.

You’ll find us on a larger stand than usual, with more offerings than ever before. There will be a lot of gorgeous smaller works and the metal painted dogs are back. New editions include etchings from Kununurra by celebrated artists Billy Jibilloorn Duncan and Penny Archie. Bay Gallery Home really wants to expose our clients to fresh works reflecting the growth in our artists’ practice and our growth as a gallery.

Please let us know if you want to see anything in particular after taking a look at our website and we’ll make sure it is at the show. We are still busily updating the website as the paintings land from Australia, so keep an eye on it.

Please click the link below for VIP tickets.

If you would like to apply for Access All Area passes we have a limited number to give away. Please email alexandra@baygalleryhome.com for the AAA code.

We look forward to seeing you there. x

Building on a Sacred Site - National Aboriginal Art Gallery in Alice Springs

Mparntwe (Alice Springs) seeks to address its dwindling visiting numbers by building the National Aboriginal Art Gallery (NAAG) on Anzac Oval in the the centre of town.

This cultural initiative aims to celebrate 65,000 years of Aboriginal culture while controversially construction will be on a sacred women’s site. Doris Stuart Kngwarreye is an Arrente woman who is a senior custodian or Apmereke-Artweye for Mparntwe, a role she inherited through her father’s line when she was young. Stuart has opposed the proposed gallery site for years as the gallery’s proposed artworks will overlap the sacred sites and song lines of the traditional owners.

“If you put a building up there with stories that don’t belong there, how do you think the ancestors will feel towards that?” she said.

The prospect not only concerns the ancestors but indigenous, living artists like Western Arrarnta elder and artist Mervyn Rubuntja. "It's a women's site," he said. "You need to talk to the ladies first if they say yes or no, because it's important for every non-indigenous person to listen."

Despite consultations and recommendations that the gallery should be built in the Desert Knowledge Precinct, the Arrente women have been ridden over roughshod by the Labour MP Chansey Paech who took over the Arts, Culture and Heritage portfolio for the Northern Territory in 2020. Mr Paech, an Arrernte man, said Ms Stuart and her family had been invited into the consultations "at every stage".

The NT government have been accused of traditional owner shopping for approval for the Anzac Oval site. As such, custodian families are being torn apart, particularly as some of them don’t hold authority of the land in question.

Rather ironically NAAG does not currently hold an Aboriginal art collection and will rely on the consultative powers of Arrente woman Sera Bray to obtain art for the collection for the £130m project, due to start once the design consultation process ends late in 2023. As it is a sacred women's site, this may proof difficult.

For ABC article go to:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-14/national-aboriginal-art-gallery-new-name-flagged/101433054

Doris Stuart Kngwarreye on her home country. (ABC News: Kirstie Wellauer)

Invitation to Affordable Art Fair Hampstead Heath 4-8 May 2022

Bay Gallery Home is exhibiting at the Affordable Art Fair for the first time and extend a free invitation to the Fair to all our lovely customers who have supported us over the years. Please come and say hello to us on Stand D10. We have amazing new artworks from a range of artists painting their Dreamtime stories, bush medicine, bush tucker and their Country. For a preview please visit our website - more are on the way.

Black Lives Matter

Geraldine Napangardi Granites, Snake Vine Dreaming

It hardly bares thinking Black Lives Matter even has to be stated.

In Australia our indigenous population have endured, and continue to endure widespread racism, discrimination, segregation and brutality. In November last year a young Walpiri man, Kumanjayi Walker, was shot in Yuendumu for breaches of his suspended sentence. He subsequently died while in police custody with a Northern Territory police officer later being charged with his murder. Kumanjayi is from a community represented through our art gallery.

Shocking, avoidable and in no way justifiable.

Reconciliation Week in Australian ends tomorrow so let’s hope people reflect on the events in America and at home by moving forward in a positive manner whereby it’s accepted all have equal human rights.

In the UK we see young black men ripping into each other with knives and increasingly using guns to inflict revenge in their postcode wars. So much was taken away from our young, particularly our black youths, during austerity. If Black Lives Matter(ed) to those in power community centres would reopen and youth programmes reinstated. Police funding could go towards supporting the young rather than installing multiple cameras on every street corner.

Black Lives Matter. Stop the Killing.

Telescope Style features Bay Gallery Home

Telescope Style seeks, curates and sells elegant, destination-inspired products for home & lifestyle. Items with a direct, unmistakable connection to a country, region, landscape or city. They source from well-travelled, design-led creatives, with a focus on quality, originality and timelessness. Bay Gallery Home is thrilled to be featured by Telescope Style on their latest blog.

Please follow the link below to the complete article.

For the full article go to https://www.telescopestyle.com/bay-gallery-home/