PERTH.- The Art Gallery of Western Australia is opening the largest-ever ensemble of collected glass and mixed-media works in Australia by internationally recognised Kokatha and Nukunu artist Yhonnie Scarce, as part of the Perth Festival 2024.

One of the country's leading contemporary artists, Scarce is known for her large-scale, unforgettable glass installations that bring to light some of the darkest shadows of Australia’s past.

The sheer scale of several significant installation works highlights the artist's mastery of the medium, as well as the aesthetic beauty of the glass form. Chandeliers of glass yams will be hung in the gallery spaces, representing narratives driven by the impact of nuclear testing in Australia on First Nations people, including the artist's family.

Scarce's work makes visible the story of the dehumanising of First Nations families and communities, with works that include chilling scientific tools and materials, referencing the way in which First Nations bodies were brutalised without consent for the sake of research. Scarce’s practice and works more broadly contend with the impact of colonisation on First Nations people in Australia and globally, by utilising archival imagery from her personal photographic collection and found objects to illuminate our shared histories of indentured labour and cultural and familial trauma.

The stories of the works, and Scarce's broader practice, draw attention to the effects of uranium mining and disruption sites, both internationally and locally – particularly drawing attention to the site of Maralinga and the often-unknown impact of nuclear testing on Scarce's birthplace of Woomera and the surrounding prohibited area in South Australia.

With the world tilting towards significant and potentially lethal global nuclear conflict, AGWA Director Colin Walker said Scarce's exhibition, with its urgent narratives detailing the personal impacts of uranium mining and nuclear destruction, couldn't be more timely.

"It is a privilege to present Scarce's solo survey at AGWA to international audiences as part of the Perth Festival. Her fiercely intellectual and uncompromising narratives of the impacts of nuclear testing and colonisation are critical and relevant for audiences today,” said Walker.

"Having recently exhibited at The Armory Show, New York, IKON Gallery in Birmingham and Palais de Tokyo, Paris, I'm delighted we are now presenting Scarce's considered, nuanced and stunning works at AGWA.”

Set over three gallery spaces and presenting sculptural glass works, mixed-media works, installations, and photography, the exhibition includes key works produced across Scarce's career from the early 2000s to the present day.

Monumental installation pieces from the 'cloud' series Cloud Chamber (2000), Thunder Raining Poison (2015), and Death Zephyr (2017) speak to the impact of nuclear testing on Scarce's custodial Country in south-eastern South Australia. Small glass yams create a vast, wind-swept form referencing the poisonous clouds that swept across parts of remote South Australia during nuclear testing undertaken in the 50s and 60s. Her award-winning glass and ceramic work Servant and Slave (2018) examines the treatment many Aboriginal women were forced to endure by their white women bosses in households and on stations. Remember Royalty (2018), on loan from the TATE London, is a mixed-media work of archival photographs, vintage objects and hand-blown glass that is a tribute to Scarce's family and the legacy of Aboriginal Peoples as the First Peoples of Australia, whom the artist considers the true royalty of the empire.

The historical and personal truth-telling within the exhibition is emotionally wrenching, but there is also a lightness and contemplative hopefulness to be found – an honest and healing light – integral to the exhibition experience for AGWA Head of Indigenous Programs and Curator Clothilde Bullen.

"It's an exhibition where works reveal and acknowledge historic hurts, but I also want people to enjoy the scale and artistry of Scarce's work. Yhonnie Scarce is unique in the Australian contemporary art space to be working at scale, interpreting tough narratives around the impacts of nuclear testing, indentured labour and the dual lens of science and racism upon First Nations people. It is possible to appreciate the beauty of the work and be challenged by the stories behind them,” Bullen said.

Yhonnie Scarce: The Light of Day opens exclusively at The Art Gallery of Western Australia on 2 February and runs until 19 May 2024. It forms a key exhibition of the 2024 Perth Festival visual arts program.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a new monograph published by AGWA in collaboration with Power Publishing. The 170-page hardcover publication features full-colour plate images, fold outs and essays by Timmah Ball, Kelly Gellatly, Natalie Harkin and Tamsin Hong, with an interview between exhibition curator Clothilde Bullen and Yhonnie Scarce.

Yhonnie Scarce was born in Woomera, South Australia, and belongs to the Kokatha and Nukunu peoples.

Scarce’s interdisciplinary practice explores the political nature and aesthetic qualities of glass and photography. Her work illuminates the history and impact of nuclear testing within the Woomera Prohibited Area in South Australia, referencing the ongoing impact of the removal and relocation of Aboriginal people from their homelands as a result. Family history is central to Scarce’s work; the artist revealing narratives critiquing the indentured labour her family members experienced.

Scarce’s professional profile has risen exponentially in recent years. In 2023, her work was exhibited in The Armory Show, New York and in 2022 at IKON Gallery Birmingham, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, and has been acquired by the Foundation Opale, Switzerland. Remember Royalty (2018) was exhibited in A Year In Art: Australia 1992 at the Tate, London and Missile Park (2021) exhibited at Gropius Bau Berlin. Scarce has also held major solo exhibitions at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art and the Institute of Modern Art.

Her work is now held in most State galleries as well as Tate Gallery London, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Flinders University Art Museum, Shepparton Art Museum, and the University of South Australia.

Art Gallery of Western Australia
Yhonnie Scarce: The Light of Day
World Premiere | 2024 Perth Festival
November 17th, 2023 - December 31st, 2023