FROM THE GROUND UP

FROM THE GROUND UP explores the interconnection between the environment and visual arts practice in the Northern Territory. It investigates how contemporary art – and more broadly culture – in the Northern Territory is shaped by the ground upon which we
live. Whether by using natural materials, depicting Country, or otherwise responding to the call of the jurisdiction’s extraordinary intercultural topography, the work of artists is inexplicably moulded by place and environment. 

Artworks by 34 significant Territory-based artists, including cohorts of artists into individual artists’ oeuvres and demonstrate artistic ingenuity through creative and technical experimentation across mediums. The exhibition presents 91 artworks, predominantly drawn from the Charles Darwin University Art Collection. The artworks span a period of 41 years, the earliest being produced in 1983 and the most recent in 2024. Gathered here as a testimony to the power of place, FROM THE GROUND UP includes loans from Karen Brown Fine Art and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

FROM THE GROUND UP celebrates the importance of artists in shaping our understanding of place and our appreciation of the Northern Territory’s distinctive, and at times overwhelming, climate and environment.

Image caption: MIDPUL / PRINCE OF WALES (ca. 1935-2002), Body design, 1998, screenprint, workshop proof, edition of 20.
Charles Darwin University Art Collection, CDU561. ©Reproduced with permission.