Across August and September, Michael Reid Sydney will invite guest artist, Samuel Leighton-Dore to transform our mezzanine gallery by presenting a 220-piece wall based ceramic installation. Unproduced Screenplay (excerpt) is a visually delightful collision of disciplines that playfully interrogates social behaviour in public art spaces. Having recently exhibited at Tweed Regional Gallery, Unproduced Screenplay (excerpt) will show in a commercial gallery context for the first time, bringing a new dimension to the commentary threaded within the delicately constructed work of art.

Each piece of this ambitious installation is a hand-made ceramic form that collectively assemble to echo the typeface and layout of a film script. In its presence, the viewer assumes the role as protagonist, with the gallery behaving as the setting to an art themed micro-scene. Leighton-Dore’s work encourages the consideration of how we interact with contemporary art, and what role we play in imbuing art with meaning.

Unproduced Screenplay will exhibit between 15 August and 14 September, with an opening reception occurring on Thursday 15 August, 6-8pm. The artist will be in attendance. Our event is open to all and will be sponsored by Sammy Piquant.

For more information on the artist’s work, please email danielsoma@michaelreid.com.au

Samuel Leighton-Dore is a screenwriter, director, published author and visual artist who lives and works on the Gold Coast, Queensland. Across multiple intersecting disciplines, Leighton-Dore’s work brings a sense of heart and humour to complex themes of identity, sexuality and psychology.

Photos by Sabine Bannard and Aaron Chapman

Michael Reid Sydney welcomes the latest body of work by Kuninjku artist Owen Yalandja, the winner of the Telstra Bark Painting Award at the 2023 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards.

This exhibition pools a series of Yalandja’s carved Mimih figures alongside his intricate paintings on bark for a dazzling dive through the stories of the Ancestral female freshwater spirit, the yawkyawk. As a senior member of the Dangkorlo clan, Yalandja is a custodian of the sacred billabong where the mermaid-like yawkyawk spirits reside near his outstation, Barrihdjowkkeng.

“Yawkyawk is my Dreaming,” says Yalandja, who works at Maningrida Arts & Culture on Kunibídji country in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. “I love making these sculptures and I have invented a way to represent the fish scales on her body.”

Meticulously rendered, cascading water droplets play out alongside these shimmering scale effects, which Yalandja represents with the upsidedown v-chevron he developed while also applying the dotting style taught to him by his father, renowned artist Crusoe Kuningbal.

To register interest in Owen Yalandja, please email tobymeagher@michaelreid.com.au

Our winter exhibition program is anchored by an expansive exhibition of new paintings by Emily Cullinan and Vicki Yatjiki Cullinan – mother and daughter artists, both of whom work from Iwantja Arts in the rocky desert country of Indulkana Community on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytatjara Lands. Emily Cullinan and Vicki Yatjiki Cullinan are among the leading voices in one of the most dynamic, innovative and celebrated movements in contemporary First Nations painting.

One of the most senior women in her community, Emily Cullinan has been an integral part of the Iwantja art scene for many years and recently experienced a major breakthrough in her practice. Her vibrant paintings are inspired by memories of travelling vast distances on foot across APY Lands with her family.

Nganampa Ngura (Our Country) will have added resonance by placing Emily Cullinan’s work in dialogue with that of her daughter, Hadley’s Art Prize and Ravenswood Art Prize winner Vicki Yatjiki Cullinan, whose sublime perspectives of Indulkana Country are conjured via sweeps of deep red crested by rhythmic striations of purple.

All paintings from Nganampa Ngura (Our Country) by Emily Cullinan and Vicki Yatjiki Cullinan and be explored and acquired below. To discuss works from the exhibition with a gallery representative, please email danielsoma@michaelreid.com.au