The Stars Before Us All
- Regina Wilson, Emily Kngwarreye, Betty Chimney, Timo Hogan, Gaypalani Wanambi, Danie Mellor, Rover Thomas, Rammey Ramsey, Nici Cumpston OAM, Charlie Tjapangati, Owen Yalandja, Djirrirra Wunuŋmurra, Dr Christian Thompson AO, Garry Namponan, Lex Namponan, Maureen Ali, Jennifer Brown, Sylvia Marragawaidj, and Vicki Cullinan
- 15—25 Oct 2025
- 1717 K St NW Washington DC
The scale and ambition of the National Gallery of Victoria’s touring exhibition The Stars We Do Not See marks a significant moment for First Nations art – and, by extension, Australian culture – on the global stage. The Stars We Do Not See has been curated by Myles Russell-Cook, Artistic Director and CEO of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, and former Senior Curator of Australian and First Nations Art at the NGV.
The Stars Before Us All is a commercial exhibition that echoes the work of the NGV and the National Gallery of Art, aiming to amplify both practicing First Nations artists and key historical works alongside this landmark institutional presentation. Our goal is not only to introduce these artworks to American collections, but to connect you with the artists who are making them – living, practicing, inventive voices grounded in Country and community.
Every artist selected for The Stars Before Us All brings their own clarity of voice. Each offers a unique expression of First Nations culture – contemporary, powerful, and rooted in a dynamic, multifaceted living tradition.
For those interested in acquiring, please contact tobymeagher@michaelreid.com.au
Across the centuries, within the full sweep of world art, Australian artists have gifted humanity two significant contributions: the landscape and the art of its First Peoples.
In their vision of the landscape, each succeeding generation of Australian painters working within a European tradition has been able to add another dimension to our understanding of the land. Given the depth of this centuries-old Western tradition, that is no small accomplishment.
If, through our landscapes, Australian art has contributed to seeing the world anew, the art of Australia’s First Peoples stands without parallel. Born of isolation and a profound need to communicate across peoples and across an endless terrain, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art is our continent’s truly unique gift to the wider creative world. Emerging from traditions of rock art, bark painting, body painting, weaving, sculptural carvings, and ephemeral sand works, First Nations artists have extended their practices into painting, performance art, textiles and fabric, photography, multi-media installation and ambitious metalwork.
The Stars Before Us All – Australian First Nations Art is an exhibition that opens a window into an extraordinary contemporary art tradition. It reveals a culture that, after millennia of relative isolation, has in the last two decades burst onto the global stage, offering audiences not only works of great aesthetic power but also a vision of art as continuity, survival, renewal and growth. In this sense, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art is not just Australia’s unique addition to the art world – it is among the world’s oldest, deepest, most original and ever evolving contemporary visual art traditions.
Michael Reid OAM
Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin, Chairman
The Stars Before Us All will present more than 30 works by 20 artists across Australia
