Bruce Bell, Ku’ Knox, 2023. Courtesy: the artist and D’Lan Contemporary, Melbourne.

Located in the remote community of Aurukun on the West coast of Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula, the Wik & Kugu Arts Centre services the community’s five Clans, supporting and celebrating contemporary cultural expression through the arts across the Wik and Kugu regions.

In the first collaboration of its kind, this exhibition will showcase the innovative art practices of twelve artists from the Wik & Kugu Arts Centre. Twenty-five works from both emerging and established artists will form an immersive installation in the first-ever sculpture-only exhibition at D’Lan Contemporary. The gallery’s spaces will host many of the Clan’s or Arukun’s totemic figures, such as a large pack of camp dogs, several sculpted birds such as jabaru and brolga, a large cockatoo installation by recent NAATSIA Award-winning artist Keith Wikmunea and a flying fox installation by Winchanam artist Alair Pambegan. The iconic camp dogs are cheeky but serious, with a number of these works having been painted in colour palettes unseen before; it will also be the first time that Wikmunea has exhibited his large format works alongside the rest of the Wik & Kugu male cohort of artists.