Significant, instillation view. Courtesy: the artists and D’Lan Contemporary, Melbourne.

This year, D’Lan Contemporary’s annual exhibition Significant will be presented in two parts to showcase the breadth of the finest of modern and contemporary Australian First Nations art.

Significant Part I will feature works of impeccable provenance from the first ten years from the birth of the Western Desert art movement in Papunya. Alongside one of the most significant recent painting discoveries by Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa, this select group of works features other important paintings by many of the movement’s founding artists, such as Old Walter Tjampitjinpa, Anatjari Tjakamarra and Timmy Payungka Tjapangati.

Significant Part II will feature contemporary Australian First Nations art, which since the 1990s saw both further developments of abstraction in painting and the rise of influential women artists from across the central and western deserts.

Featuring works from many of Australia’s most prominent artists such as Ginger Riley, Paddy Bedford and Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri, Significant Part II will also feature works by prominent women artists such as the great Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Eubena Nampitjinpa, Makinti Napanangka, Naata Nungurrayi and Carlene West.