Tony Albert (b.1981) Is descended from the Girramay, Yidinji and Kuku Yalanji people of the rainforest region of North Queensland. He is an artist with a longstanding interest in the cultural representation/misrepresentation of Aboriginal people. Albert began collecting ‘Aboriginalia’ (vintage fabrics, painted pottery ashtrays and knickknacks with sentimentalised portraits of Aboriginal children, or caricatures of Aboriginal men), as a child when he went with his family to Op-Shops. As a child, Albert says, he use to think of the Aboriginal ‘portraits’ as members of the family. As an artist, he has a much more insight into the politics of of these representations. He asks ‘how do we remember, give justice to, and rewrite complex and traumatic histories’?
The work for Trace Remark Aboriginal Gumnut Patches (Unwritten TRACE) is from a body of work titled ‘Conversations with Margaret Preston’. In this work Albert gives attention to artist Margaret Preston’s magazine articles from the 1930s, where she encourages readers to use Aboriginal designs and symbols in order to create ‘a uniquely Australian expression’. Albert recognises that Preston had in mind a more sophisticated use of abstracted motifs, nevertheless, the appropriation was without permission, acknowledgement or respect, and seemed to open the floodgates to blatant misrepresentation and caricature. Aborigines really did become equivalent to flora and fauna.
Albert parodies Preston’s wildflower project, through constructing a gum branch ‘still life’ sprouting gum blossoms constructed of tourist badges (Alice Springs, Darwin, Tennant Creek, Northern Territory) outlined in heavy black line just like Preston’s hand coloured Lino prints.
Albert is acknowledged as a valued ambassador for Indigenous community and culture. Recently he was announced as the Cartier Foundation First Nations Curatorial Fellow for the Sydney Biennale 2024 and 2026. In January this year he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Griffith University for his significant contribution to the arts. He is the first Indigenous Trustee for the Art Gallery of New South Wales, a member of the Art Gallery of New South Wales Indigenous advisory, a board member for the City of Sydney's Public Art Panel and member of the Art & Place Board at the Queensland Children's Hospital.
Albert has been awarded several prestigious public commissions both within Australia and internationally, including an installation for Public Art Fund’s Global Positioning, which debuted in January 2022 on bus shelters throughout New York City, Chicago, and Boston. He represented Australia with his commission for Constellations: Global Reflections, a first of its kind exhibition curated by world-renowned US based art curator Lance Fung which took place during the 2022 G20 Summit in Bali. Also, in 2022 he was included in Prime: Arts Next Generation (Phaidon) featuring the top 100 most distinctive and innovative young artists from around the world. Most recently, renowned Indigenous collective proppaNOW, of which Tony is a founding member, were awarded the prestigious 2022-24 Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice (USA).
In Australia Tony Albert is represented by Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney.
