Barka Messenger, 2021

pigment inkjet print on Hahnemühle paper, hand coloured with crayons
63 x 170 cm
edition of 5 + 2AP
$8,000 unframed

Nici Cumpston

Born in Adelaide in 1963, Nici Cumpston is a proud Barkandji artist, curator, writer, and educator who is also of Afghan, English and Irish heritage. Cumpston has been documenting Australia’s rivers and waterways since 2000 due to their inherent offering of support to country, “like a trusted relative, they support us by providing food, water and shelter…” Nici explains. “We rely on them to sustain us physically, emotionally and spiritually.”

Cumpston pushes the boundaries of documentary photography with her unique approach of shooting on black-and-white film, which she then scans and prints digitally on canvas before they are hand-coloured by the artist. The handcolouring of images has a long history in photography. The 1970s saw a revival of handcolouring among a number of Australian photographers and it remains a significant aspect of contemporary practice. Cumpston handcolours large-scale landscapes of the Murray-Darling river system as a way of documenting traces of Indigenous occupation and use and of bringing to our attention the decline of the area’s delicately balanced ecosystems.

Having studied fine arts, specialising in Photography at the University of South Australia, Nici has worked as a photographic lecturer at Tauondi Aboriginal Community College, Port Adelaide, as well as at the University of South Australia. She currently holds the position of Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Her work is held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia Canberra, National Gallery of Victoria Melbourne, Parliament House Collection Canberra, Macquarie Group Collection Sydney, Artbank Melbourne, Flinders University Art Collection Adelaide, the Adelaide Festival Centre Foundation Adelaide and the Adelaide Club Adelaide among many others.