Sydney Contemporary 2025: First Nations

Offering a powerful opening statement for our most ambitious art fair presentation to date, the entry to the Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin booth is flanked by a trifecta of magnificent new works from three of the most accomplished and acclaimed voices in contemporary First Nations art practice: Regina Pilawuk Wilson, Gaypalani Wanambi and Betty Chimney.

Wanambi’s star turn at Sydney Contemporary closely follows the announcement of her triumph at this year’s Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA), the most prestigious prize dedicated to First Nations art. Working at the Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Art Centre in Yirrkala, Northeast Arnhem Land, the celebrated Yolŋu artist was awarded NATSIAA’s highest honour, the $100,000 Telstra Art Award, for her monumental, multi-panel work Burwu, blossom – a tessellating installation of reclaimed road signs dazzlingly reimagined with intricately etched depictions of the epic Ancestral journeys of Wuyal. Our 2025 Sydney Contemporary presentation is anchored by another composite etched-metal piece realised on the same breathtaking scale as her Telstra work.

Award-winning painter, master weaver and 2025 Sulman Prize finalist Regina Pilawuk Wilson returns to Sydney Contemporary with a series of epic, colour-soaked canvases whose rhythmic, reverberating linework offers a contemporary painterly interpretation of a weaving tradition spanning generations. Widely celebrated internationally and recognised as one of Australia’s pre-eminent contemporary Aboriginal artists, the senior Ngan’gikurrungurr artist and cultural leader is the cultural director of Durrmu Arts Aboriginal Corporation and co-founder of the Peppimenarti community. She joins our presentation with a spectacular suite of paintings that echo the heft, intricacy and tonal depth of her Sulman-shortlisted work, Wupun (sun mat).

Yankunytjatjara artist and three-time Wynne Prize finalist Betty Chimney presents a new series concurrent with her solo exhibition Katjarunkanyi – Breaking Dawn at Michael Reid Sydney. A long-time artist and director of Iwantja Arts – the Indigenous-owned and -governed art centre in the rocky desert country of Indulkana on the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands – Chimney is inspired by her ancestral Yankunytjatjara Country and her determination to maintain a strong connection to Country and culture.

The presence of Wanambi, Wilson and Chimney at Sydney Contemporary immediately precedes an exciting international foray, with all three artists set to star in Michael Reid’s forthcoming group show The Stars Before Us All in Washington, D.C. The exhibition opens next month in conversation with the National Gallery of Victoria’s landmark exhibition The Stars We Do Not See at the National Gallery of Art.

To discuss available work by Gaypalani Wanambi, Regina Pilawuk Wilson and Betty Chimney, please email tobymeagher@michaelreid.com.au