For visitors to the Northern Territory, the $190,000 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, held each year at Darwin’s Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, provide an unequalled opportunity to see a diverse range of styles and practices from emerging and established artists from across the country.
The result is a portrait — in bark painting, sculpture, multimedia, works on paper and more — of the nation whose facets reflect connection to country, colonial history, intergenerational relationships and cultural continuity.
“We are incredibly excited to welcome visitors from across Australia and around the world to experience these works in Darwin,” MAGNT director Adam Worrall says.
Overlapping complementary events such as the Darwin International Art Fair, National Indigenous Music Awards and, further afield, the Garma Festival make for an especially rich time to be visiting Larrakia Country and Yolngu Country.
Six West Australian Aboriginal artists have been named finalists in the 2026 NATSIAA:
+ Michelle Anderson (Pitjantjatjara).
+ River Bali (Gija/Kija).
+ Darryl Dempster (Noongar).
+ Ian Rictor (Pitjantjatjara).
+ Allery Sandy (Yindjibarndi).
+ Sylvia Wilson (Martu).
Their artworks are among 64 chosen by expert judges Julie Gough, Yhonnie Scarce and Warraba Weatherall from 221 Australia-wide entries. Winners will be announced at MAGNT on Friday, August 7.
Previous WA winners include significant artists such as Timo Hogan, Noli Rictor, John Prince Siddon and Betty Muffler.
For those unable to visit the NATSIAA exhibition this year, there are three important First Nations exhibitions to see in Perth.
At the Art Gallery of WA, I AM (ongoing) features 60 works featuring personal and shared stories from throughout Australia, while Christopher Pease’s major retrospective Terra Nullius is on at the John Curtin Gallery until August 23.
Pease’s search for a distinctive visual language found early inspiration in the work of Revel Cooper, the mission-trained Noongar artist whose drawings, like those of other children detained at the Carrolup Native Settlement in the late 1940s, are represented in the small but powerful exhibition Once Known, at Curtin’s Perth CBD gallery. It is on until December 15.
magnt.net.au/telstra-natsiaa-2026
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