From 7 April to 7 June 2006, the Australian Embassy will be presenting a new monographic exhibition of the work of Australian artist Dennis Nona, shown for the first time in France. The exhibition is organised by the State of Queensland, represented by the Queensland Indigenous Arts Marketing and Export Agency, Brisbane (QIAMEA), in partnership with The Australian Art Print Network, Sydney. The exhibition is curated by Stéphane Jacob, a French specialist in Aboriginal art (Arts d'Australie-Stéphane Jacob gallery, Paris). The exhibition will showcase the recent work of this contemporary artist from one of Australia's two 'indigenous' communities, the Torres Strait Islanders (in the north of the continent). The exhibition will feature around fifty graphic works, sculptures and installations. A dreamlike combination of traditional totemic representations, often centred on the sea
(turtles, fish, lobsters), inventive forms and characters reminiscent of Hieronymus Bosch, and subtle arabesques as the backdrop to his stories, Dennis Nona's work has rightly been described by art critic Nicolas Rothwell, of the national daily "The Australian", as "
the most intriguing work in the North's capital ∗".
Refusing to produce banal exotic images of fish or sea creatures for tourists, the artist applies the drawings learnt from traditional mask sculptors to the original evocation of legends from the epic past of the Torres Strait and neighbouring Papua New Guinea.
His works are veritable "songs of gesture", in which the repetition of clan motifs creates an aesthetic unification. In addition to the visual dimension, Dennis Nona also sees his graphic work as a 'defence and illustration' of the culture of his native region. The complex drawings and bold figurative imagery he creates are now central to a cultural revival, with elders using them to tell their tales to younger people. Unlike traditional sculptures, which even today focus on a single element of a myth or legend, Dennis Nona's engravings infinitely multiply the avatars of the beings represented: warriors, cannibal headhunters, or even witches and sorcerers who have metamorphosed into sea creatures and who, at the moment of death, have become the islands and the legends.
of the beings depicted: warriors, cannibal headhunters, or sorcerers and witches who metamorphosed into sea creatures and, when they died, became the islands and rocky outcrops that form today's Torres Strait. Using a large number of visual and symbolic planes, the artist highlights both traditional themes and contemporary events. The richness of his works lies in the multiple levels of interpretation possible.

∗ in reference to the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Award in 2005 in Darwin, the most prestigious Australian event equivalent to the "Oscars© of Aboriginal art".