Yaritji Young, of ‘white hands on black art’ claims, is Aboriginal Awards finalist

The Indigenous artist at the centre of whitewash claims has been named as a finalist in the longest-running Aboriginal art awards.

Yaritji Young’s paintings hang in galleries in NSW, Queensland, and South Australia. Picture: Rhett Hammerton

The Indigenous artist at the centre of a video showing a white ­manager of an Aboriginal art ­studio painting on her canvas is a finalist for the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards.

Yaritji Young, whose paintings hang in galleries in NSW, Queensland and South Australia, and who won the Wynne Prize in 2016 with her siblings, the Ken Sisters, is one of 63 finalists for the 2023 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards.

Now in its 40th year, it is the longest-running Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art award in the country.

The studio at which Young paints, the outback Tjala Arts centre, is part of the APY Arts Centre Collective, which has been the subject of claims from Indigenous artists and former staffers about white hands interfering in the making of black art.

Adam Worrall, director of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, which presents the awards, said all finalists met the NATSIAA guidelines for “authenticity, collaboration, non-Indigenous participation, and provenance”.

The allegations were revealed following a months-long investigation by The Australian, which has rocked the art world.

In a short video, obtained by The Australian, the manager of the studio 1400km from Adelaide appears to drop her paintbrush in a bucket and slosh big, bold circles on one of Young’s works.

That painting is supposed to be an interpretation of her Tjukurpa – her ancient and sacred stories of customs and law.

That manager, Rosie Palmer, denied she was painting when she was shown a still photograph from the video. The APYACC has also denied interfering with artists’ Tjukurpa.

Former staffers claimed administrator Skye O’Meara felt she knew what white buyers wanted in black art and studio employees were given the “directive” to make a piece as marketable as possible.

A still image from a video showing Rose Palmer, manager of Tjala Art in the APY Lands settlement of Amata, contributing to a painting by Indigenous artist Yaritji Young.

The Australian is not suggesting these claims are true, only that they have been made.

Frank Young, Yaritji Young’s husband, according to several sources, told other artists at a meeting that his wife had had “an accident” and was “really tired”, and “that’s why that whitefella was painting on her painting”.

Mr Worrall said while the gallery was “concerned about reports where artists have not consented to non-Indigenous participation on their artwork”, the finalists had met new guidelines around non-Indigenous participation.

“The NATSIAA 2023 guidelines were revised in 2022 and were confirmed by Australian Arts Law as being in line with their best practice,” he said. “All finalists’ works have met the ... guidelines, including the terms and conditions addressing authenticity, collaboration, non-Indigenous parti-cipation and provenance.

“MAGNT supports Aboriginal agency and the authorship of each and every artist who enters in the Telstra NATSIAA.”

Mr Worrall said the allegations uncovered by The Australian would not change the judging process, and that the MAGNT would support the judging panel’s decisions. Five of the SA finalists in the 2023 Telstra NATSIAA are from Tjala Arts including Iluwanti Ken, Frank Young and Naomi Kantjuriny.

The finished Yaritji Young painting that appeared in the controversial video.

The APY Lands are remote and sparsely populated communities dotted around the top left corner of South Australia.

The Telstra NATSIAA selection panel – Hannah Presley, Matt Poll and Rebekah Raymond – said in a general statement about the finalists on Wednesday: “Each artwork importantly reflects what Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art is today.

“It’s an enormous privilege to be given a glimpse of hundreds of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists right across the country who are depicting their lives and worlds through their art-making. Our job was incredibly difficult and we took days to carefully consider and deliberate over this year’s finalists.”