White hands on black art not fine

Some Aboriginal artists whose work is distributed through the APY Art Centre Collective do not agree with their fellow Aboriginal artist Sally Scales – a board member of the APYACC and the National Gallery of Australia – who said on Tuesday there was nothing wrong with Indigenous artists using white assistants. “They’re our staff and the artists have a right to determine what that looks like,” she told ABC Radio National. Scales’s comments were a direct backflip of her previous emphatic denials of white hands on black art at the organisation.

At a meeting with The Weekend Australian in Adelaide earlier this year, Scales and the APYACC denied there were instances where a white studio staff member would paint on an Indigenous canvas, contributing to the artistic process. “We wouldn’t allow it,” Scales said at the time. “It’s our work. This is our bread and butter. One of your claims is insinuating this is fraudulent … These are made from our own hands. These are made from our thoughts and our processes, our Tjukurpa.”

For eight months, The Australian’s Greg Bearup has given a voice to Indigenous artists such as Paul Andy, who approached the paper after he heard about our investigations. Last year, Andy said on video, he was working on a painting depicting his grandfather’s Tjukurpa – sacred law and stories – in the collective’s Adelaide studio. “That story was emu dreaming,” he said. APYACC manager Skye O’Meara painted on it, changing his design, he said. She regularly painted on his work, he said, and claimed she did the same with the work of other artists. The Weekend Australian later received a retraction letter from Andy, sent via APYACC lawyers, saying: “I was told to say a story about how Skye says ‘no, no, no’ when she doesn’t like the way an artist is painting. It’s not true … white people can’t touch Tjukurpa, it’s too strong … I didn’t mean it. I was wrong.” In later telephone calls, Andy claimed he was presented with a letter to sign by the collective and he thought it was about returning to work at the studio.

Allowing vulnerable Indigenous artists to voice their concerns about having their artworks “juiced up” for commercial reasons is not racism, as Scales implied on Tuesday. Asked if customers buying art from the collective would understand the piece was purely Indigenous art, she said: “If you’re going to a non-Indigenous artist and you’re saying, is this done solely by this artist’s hand? Do you go and do that? Or is this a question only for black artists? Because that lies at the crux of it. That lies at the racism of what we faced this year.” That assessment mischaracterises Bearup’s reporting.

Others disagree with Scales. As reported last Saturday, an independent panel investigating the APYACC interviewed 200 people and found substantial evidence of wrongdoing in every area it was tasked to investigate by the South Australian government. These included fraud, bullying and white hands on black art. SA Arts Minister Andrea Michaels has referred the body to the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations and the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission for further investigation. ORIC has the power to initiate criminal and civil proceedings; the ACCC can initiate civil action. The investigation was sparked by Bearup’s reporting. Northern Territory Arts Minister Chansey Paech, an Indigenous man, says white interference in Indigenous art is “cultural theft”. He has called on Ms O’Meara to resign. He says her position is untenable, as The Australian also has argued. So is that of the APYACC board.

The NGA and the arts establishment, which closed ranks while Bearup was researching his original story and since its publication in April, also have questions to answer. Further investigations by ORIC and the ACCC should be the next steps in ensuring integrity and transparency in the Indigenous art sector in future.