Vincent Namatjira (Australian Aboriginal, 1983), Desert Songs (Frank Yamma), 2023. Acrylic on linen, 122 x 152 cm.

Australia’s Richest Woman Demands Removal of her Portrait From Exhibition

Art is subjective. And while many artists long to share their work with the world, there’s no guarantee that the audience will understand it, or even like it.

That certainly seems to be the case with a painting by indigenous artist Vincent Namatjira, which includes a portrait of Australia’s richest person, mining magnate Gina Rinehart.

Rinehart has reportedly called for the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) to remove her portrait, one of 21 individual works that make up a single piece in Namatjira’s exhibition “Australia in Colour,” from display.

The exhibition has been running at the gallery in the Australian capital, Canberra, since March.

Other subjects in the piece include the late Queen Elizabeth II, American musician Jimi Hendrix, Australian Aboriginal rights activist Vincent Lingiari and the former Prime Minister of Australia Scott Morrison.

Australian media has reported that Rinehart approached the NGA’s director and chair to request the painting’s removal.

The NGA said in a statement Thursday that it “welcomes the public having a dialogue on our collection and displays.”

“Since 1973, when the National Gallery acquired Jackson Pollocks’ Blue Poles, there has been a dynamic discussion on the artistic merits of works in the national collection, and/or on display at the Gallery,” the NGA statement continued. “We present works of art to the Australian public to inspire people to explore, experience and learn about art.”

Namatjira said in a statement that he paints “people who are wealthy, powerful, or significant – people who have had an influence on this country, and on me personally, whether directly or indirectly, whether for good or for bad.”

“Some people might not like it, other people might find it funny but I hope people look beneath the surface and see the serious side too,” Namatjira added.

Rinehart has an estimated net worth of $30.2 billion USD, according to Forbes. She “remained unshakable” at the top of Forbes’ Australia’s 50 Richest list for 2024, the outlet reported in February.

By Catherine Nicholls and Hilary Whiteman.

“The picture is as beautiful as her soul.”

The picture, in question:

Yeah.

I think this was intentional on the artist’s part.

Fair play to him. (Vincent Namatjira)

Gina Rinehart is a GHASTLY woman.

A putrid, bigoted mining magnate and heiress.

A textbook example of the vulgar, idle rich.

(Ghastly as in stupid, unpleasant, and just AWFUL! Look her up!)

I like to think that this portrait shows her True Self.

The evil lurking underneath.

Even if it looks like she was exposed to the Elephant’s Foot at Chernobyl and started melting.

Still.

And she doesn’t want anyone to see this portrait.

You know what that means!

Feel free to reblog.

Billionaire Demands Portrait's Removal from Australia National Gallery

Gina Rinehart, the richest person in Australia, has reportedly called on Canberra’s National Gallery of Australia to take down a painting of her by Aboriginal artist Vincent Namatjira.

It wasn’t immediately clear what had moved Rinehart, a donor to the National Gallery of Australia, to make the request, but it was clear, at least, that Namatjira’s portrait was viewed as being not the kindest representation of her. Both the Guardian and the Sydney Morning Herald used the word “unflattering” to describe the picture, which renders her skin a pinkish color, exaggerates the folds on her chin, and turns her lips downward into a frown.

The painting is one of nearly two dozen portraits that appears in Namatjira’s current retrospective at the museum, which traveled the show from the Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide.

In Australia, Namatjira is well-known and much-loved. He became the first Indigenous artist to win the Archibald Prize, a prestigious Australian award for portraiture, in 2020.

Rinehart earned her fortune in the mining business and is currently chairwoman of Hancock Prospecting. She has periodically made national headlines in Australia for a string of controversies, most notably her decision in 2022 to stop funding a netball team after an Indigenous player asked not to have the Hancock Prospecting logo featured on her uniform.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, in April, Rinehart personally asked NGA director Nick Mitzevich and NGA chair Ryan Stokes to deinstall the Namatjira portrait. The museum declined to do so. “The National Gallery welcomes the public having a dialogue on our collection and displays,” the museum said in a statement to the publication.  ...

Her portrait is in the bottom row, 3rd from the L

(via Gina Rinehart demands National Gallery of Australia remove her portrait | Gina Rinehart | The Guardian)

artist Vincent Namatjira captures the real person

Vincent Namatjira

The Rinehart-Streisand Effect [x]

Sexypink - International Art news.. - Image against likeness.

Vincent Namatjira (1983 - ) The Royal Tour 1, 2020. Acrylic on found book pages, 43 x 58,5 cm.

"Vincent Namatjira sourced the material for The Royal Tour from op-shops in Alice Springs, Northern Territory. [...] The artist states that whenever he paints powerful figures – politicians, world leaders or members of the royal family, for example – he is attempting to disrupt or take away their power. He often does this by placing the figures on Aboriginal land, out of their comfort zone, where they are not considered leaders but are viewed as just another visitor. He will also often place himself in the work, in “a mischievous self-portrait, using a bit of cheeky humour kind of as an equaliser – to put everyone on the same level.”

Tarnanthi at the South Australian Art Gallery...

So, yep, art from everywhere.

I like the pictures of country, just the way that the colours are perfectly caught, and the textures. These are Yolnu, from Arnhem land.

But I was so blown away by the Kimberley pictures from Dulcie on Balgo I forgot to take pictures of those. I'm more familiar with those colours, though I've been to the Pilbara, a little south of her country.

So, I guess you can understand the paintings if you recognise them as an overhead view of country.

Before you get the wrong idea, my people are Scottish, Irish, Cornish and English. i mean my Dad's mother said there were rumours of an Indigenous ancestor, but her recollection of things were half reliable at best. And, no, there's no indication at all that I have any Indigenous Australian ancestors. But I have always had some red dust and spinifex in me somewhere, even if only as a visitor.

But to Vincent Namatjira, great grandson of Albert.

Vincent has a sharp wit, and his paintings are made of pretty harsh--if very funny--stuff.

But he has painted portraits of his heroes, too. So, when he makes a statement, it's a pretty strong statement. He doesn't waste "words", i guess.

Vincent Namatjira, Queen Elizabeth and Vincent (On Country), 2018, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 61 in.

I feel like this image has such good meme potential but I can't come up with something help

some self-portraits (mixed mediums), in order; Lucas Samaras, Kevin Cobb, Owen Rival, Vincent Namatjira, Colleen Barry, Louis Faurer, Yoshiko Fukushima, Wallace Dibble, Vivian Maier, Gwendolyn Knight

The artist must be nothing more than a “Medium”

Art transmutes you in an existential way, asks questions, and it connects you to worlds and conceptions you didn’t even know subsisted, at least not consciously. It’s a woeful truth most artists must reconcile at some point in their ingenious lives: the role of the arts is perpetually being queried. Many might question whether art is imperative , quite usually when the subject has to do with subsidizing arts curricula. For others, there is no debating the credence that the arts have never been more consequential to our society and should be plenarily integrated into our lives, our community and inculcation in general. I truly believe that artists, while doing what they do, are only a passage through which art flows out, almost as if born of itself, denuded of the artist's ego. The artist is no more or less than an implement in which great art is engendered. I believe that the artist should inherently experience their own means to an end, for their art to be born and flourish, lest their conscious presence detracts from the art itself. The artist must be nothing more than a “medium” through which art permeates, sanctioning for pristine expression devoid of the artist’s ego. The artist and their artwork’s symbiotic relationship must suffer for the art to flourish, to stand alone, to withstand the transmutations of time. The demise of the artist, which I believe occurs at the same time as the confinement of the art — be it carvings, painting, or making of films or music — sanctions the viewer/appreciator to enter the piece. First, art is the barometer that measures levels of cultural sophistication. Throughout human subsistence, we have learned about cultural accomplishments from the cultural artefacts left behind. Many of these artifacts have left behind sempiternal marks on the planet.

If a story is what the random attestations threaded together in uniform unvarying structure induces in its reader, then why shouldn’t the smears of paint, or obliterates on marble only thing to look at? Art can communicate information, shape our everyday lives. When you take a look at any brilliant works of architecture you notice how iconic structures are a piece of art that conveys paramount messages about the time, place and context in which the structure was engendered. In integration with providing commentary about the more larger culture, art makes life more manageable, tolerable and relishable.

One may not cerebrate about more utilitarian artefacts and places as art, but they do play a part in one’s inventive ordeal. Furthermore, art can elucidate to the conception of death. Cairenes mummified humans and laid them to slumber in sumptuous tombs, while today individuals place profoundly relished ones in the ground (or and adorn that reposing place with plaques, memorials and flowers.. El Dia de Los Muertos celebrates the passaging of doted ones and recollects them by visiting them, beni facing and the notion that their souls remain near. These cultural and societal norms, coalesced with our scientific discernment, allow us to process life and death more holistically. Personally, I think of big names such as mexican painter Diego Rivera , and how much we have gotten to peek into his soul thanks to his artwork, and many mural based portraits. I envision Jackson Pollock, which in all veraciousity , I can’t exactly comprehend what he was endeavouring to verbalize with his sublime colors...but I do comprehend what the art tried to convey to me, and how I feel moved and seen and accepted in front of them. I think of emerging artists. I think of Vincent Namatjira and his resplendent work. The artist needs to be alive, especially when their ideologies are salient in specific times and places. The artist might additionally have to die in their relationship with their engenderments, in order for us to fabricate our own relationship with the pieces and anatomization of them. For a lot of people, art has to be a voice, puissance, conveyance of life and more. Art drives humans to look beyond that which is indispensable to survive and leads people to engender and create for the sake of voice, expression and construal. In fact, I believe existence has no meaning without art. That in itself is how it brings society together because there is no experience without art.

Reframing you is an event organiser for artists and mental health experts globally. A non profit initiative that focuses on providing a FREE platform for people to communicate with experts in all fields from all around the world because not everybody has the privilege to do so. It prioritizes the benefit of people, mental health problems and for upcoming/well known artists to express themselves and talk about their journey and advise people who are interested in their field. Its anthem is “Reframe you, Reframe Society.”

de la serie "no lo conocia" Vincent Namatjira. indígena aborigen, dando una dimensión diferente de isabel más en https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=Vincent+Namatjira.+isabel#imgrc=gRUlT79Sr6q1oM&imgdii=cv0gu9qR-yJy9M