Manningham Art Gallery in Doncaster has revealed a new major exhibition - Painted Country, featuring the work of five First Nations artists.

Now open at Manningham, the artists in the new exhibition include Nellie Ngampa Coulthard, Brenda Napaltjarri, Clara Napurrula, Rene Sundown and Adrian Jurra Tjungurrayi. Bringing together diverse practices and perspectives to reveal their unique depictions of the Australian landscape in their work, the exhibition highlights each artists individual skill set.

The senior and emerging artists represent two Indigenous arts centres – Iwantja Arts in South Australia and Papunya Tula Artists in the Northern Territory.The exhibition has been timed to coincide with National Reconciliation Week, which is held each year from May 27 to June 3rd, with the 2025 theme: Bridging Now to Next.

Aboriginal writer, artist, arts worker and Aboriginal affairs advocate from Cape York Peninsula, Jack Wilki-Jans, has described the 14 artworks featured in Painted Country as "hypnotic visions" of the artists' Country.

"Visions of a wide country, a country of colour and texture, of sand dunes and salt lakes, scorched earth and radiant sunsets, of brushes and sweeping tufts of grasses with flowers – Australia," he said.

"It isn't the hand that paints which this exhibition exalts, it's the eyes which see."

This celebration of First Nations contemporary painting is presented in collaboration with Alcaston Art Gallery, with special thanks to the artists, Iwantja Arts in South Australia and Papunya Tula Artists in the Northern Territory.

For more fashion, culture, arts and lifestyle news subscribe for free to the Style Up newsletter.