Eight emerging First Nations artists who have participated in a year-long mentorship program will present new works in an exhibition titled My Country.

The Country Road and NGV First Nations Commissions program is a national, biennial mentorship program and exhibition series that invites an artist from every Australian state and territory to produce a significant new work under the guidance of an esteemed mentor. The mentor provides assistance over the course of a year through the concept, creation and delivery stages of the work.

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Installation view of Aidan Hartshorn’s work These violent delights 2024 on display in My Country: Country Road and NGV First Nations Commissions from 22 March to 4 August 2024 at the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Melbourne.

Image: Tom Ross

Canberra-based artist and Walgalu and Wiradjuri man Aidan Hartshorn builds upon his ongoing Masters research into the impact of the Snowy Mountains Scheme on Walgalu Country. Mentored by Nunga (Kaurna Miyurna) and Māori (Te Arawa) man James Tylor, Hartshorn has created an installation comprised of sixteen individual diamond-shaped glass shields reflecting traditional Wiradjuri bark shields – each representing one of the dams of the Snowy Hydro. By suspending the shields in the formation of the now-hidden Tumut River and illuminating them with blades of white light, Hartshorn’s work gestures to the implications of the hydroelectricity system on Walgalu Country and cultural sites.

Jan Baljagil Gunjaka Griffiths will present her work, Tree of knowledge, which depicts the native gerdewoon (boab tree). The work honours the personal and cultural significance of the gerdewoon as a source of food, water, cultural stories and as a historical site. The work comprises ceramic hand-painted boab nuts, a four-metre-high ochre on paper painting of a gerdewoon and a soundscape of Griffith’s poetry. Griffiths has been mentored by her mother and senior artist Peggy Griffiths, both are Miriwoong women from Kununurra in the East Kimberley, Western Australia working out of Waringarri Arts.

Gamilaroi weaver and textile artist Sophie Honess has produced three woven rugs titled Daruka – grass, water, granite. Over 86,000 wool knots make up Honess’s work which represents the different environmental features of Daruka, located on Gamilaroi Country (Tamworth, New South Wales). The rugs each reflect different environmental features of Daruka – the grasses, creek beds and sand. Honess was mentored by Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi man and contemporary artist, Jonathan Jones.