Tjanara Talbot will be travelling to Canada this month as part of an artist residency program between Parramatta and Montreal called the Urban Indigenous Artist Exchange Program.
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She will stay at the Darling Foundry in Montreal for three months, fully paid.
To date, three artists have taken part in this work program which developed with the idea of expanding Indigenous artistic practice internationally.
In the lead up to this, between exhibitions, freelance work as a wedding photographer and her job at the NSW Art Gallery, her work has been thriving.
“I have lots of ideas and images to work with,” she said. “I take lots of photos and have a computer bank. I take personal photos all the time and use photo shop to enhance them or layer them.”
She first became interested in the layering technique through her work in the dark room on open exposure.
“Things could become ghostly and it has a particular effect that I like,” she said.
Her latest work, will be on display today as part of an exhibition called First Light in the Canberra Contemporary Art Space, featuring portraiture of her sister Yamirra and the landscape at the mouth of the Murray River in South Australia - a river of significance because all rivers west of the Divide in NSW flow into it, including the Bell and Macquarie.
Ms Talbot said that she was very excited about the opportunity she would have to go to Canada and taking part in the First Nations Festival (similar to Australia’s NAIDOC Week) which she had already planned on attending.
“I think it will be amazing,” she said.
“To get that cultural exchange happening is important, especially for artists in the future.”
Already she has been thinking about the cultural similarities between Australia and Canada.
“I think there are a lot of similarities in our belief system, looking after the land, the integrity to it. We are pretty staunch as first nations people, out to create awareness as still being here.”
“The beautiful thing about cultural exchange is that we can share our different ways and how we live.”
As for the direction art is taking over there, she believes it is not so cut and dried because artists are so singular in their style and are taking a wide range of approaches following, just like artists do in Australia whether it’s by using early painting techniques on canvas and without ochre or taking on photography.
“Some people say that it is not traditional,” Ms Talbot said
“But it is actually a part of a practised culture of continuing ideas.”
