We are delighted to welcome Janine McAullay Bott, one of Australia’s foremost exponents of weaving and bush sculpture, and 2009 recipient and five times finalist in the prestigious Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, as the Sculpture by the Sea Cottesloe 2017 Crown Resorts Foundation & Packer Family Foundation Invited Indigenous Artist.
Janine’s artwork reflects her Noongar heritage including the animals and country of her ancestors, and much of her work is dedicated to her Noongar mother. She exhibits at Sculpture by the Sea for the first time with her work Fish Trap (2016), woven from Queen palm fronds, agave, and mulberry branches. Janine poetically describes this work as representing ‘nourishment’, ‘recognition’, ‘pride’, ‘spiritual wellbeing’ and, perhaps in summary, ‘A simple nomadic life / Their greatest possession / The land that they tread upon’.