The launch today of “Selections from the Austcorp Group Limited Collection of Aboriginal Art” has transformed Deloitte’s corporate environment by changing the ambience through its materiality, colour and beauty.

This exhibition has been generously loaned from the collection of Austcorp Group Limited which was established in 2003 by Austcorp Executive Chairman Trevor Chappell.

The exhibition has been curated by Barbara Flynn, who is an adviser to the collection.

Tim Klingender, Director of Aboriginal Art, Sotheby’s Australia will open the exhibition at 6pm today at Deloitte’s Sydney office in Grosvenor Place.

The exhibition focuses on works by Pintupi artists painting for Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd, which, appropriately, were the first Aboriginal works to come in to the collection in 2003.

On view are two early boards by Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi and Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula as well as a major painting by Pitjantjatjara artist Tommy Watson who was one of eight Indigenous artists commissioned to make site-specific works for the new Musée du Quai Branly in Paris in 2006.

Over the years the Austcorp Group Limited Art Collection has been expanded beyond its early focus on Papunya to include works from the communities of East Kimberley, Irrunytju, Balgo and Fitzroy Crossing.

The exhibition embraces excellence and diversity, combining works by emerging artists with those of more established practitioners including many Aboriginal painters who first started making art late in their lives.

NSW Office Managing Partner at Deloitte, John Meacock said that the Austcorp Group Limited Art Collection provides an important opportunity for viewers to see works of Aboriginal art not otherwise represented in public galleries and museums.

“The artists in this exhibition present a selection of works by first-generation and other leading artists who developed a new form of painting marked by a reduction of form to a few basic elements of line and texture.”

This art exhibition is the sixth in a series of art exhibitions curated by Flynn and hosted by Deloitte in its Sydney office since 2005.

The exhibition opening details are as follows:

6pm, Monday, 29 October 2007
Deloitte Sydney
Level 9, Grosvenor Place
225 George Street, Sydney