Rosella Namok facts for kids

Rosella Namok (born 19 May 1979) is an amazing Indigenous Australian artist from Lockhart River, Queensland. She is known for her beautiful paintings. Rosella learned art in high school. Later, in 1997, she joined a community art project. This project helped start a group of artists called the Lockhart River Art Gang.

Rosella Namok is famous for her unique paintings. She even won a big award in 2003, the High Court of Australia Centenary Art Prize. By 2007, she had already shown her art in eighteen solo exhibitions. These shows happened both in Australia and in other countries.

How Rosella Started Her Art Career

Rosella Namok studied art when she was in high school. In 1995, a former teacher, Fran Barker, and Geoff Barker, who had experience in design, started an art program. This program was for young people who had finished school in Lockhart River. Rosella was one of the first students to learn printmaking with them.

In 1997, the Barkers and artists like Rosella took some of their prints to an art show. This show was in Canberra, Australia's capital city. Important art experts, Betty Churcher and Margo Neale, saw their work there. They were so impressed that they bought some art for the Queensland Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Australia. This was an incredible start for the group, which soon became known as the Lockhart River Art Gang.

The Lockhart River Art Gang

The Lockhart River Art Gang is special because it's a successful group of Indigenous artists. What makes them different is that many of their members, including Rosella, are young people. Other famous Indigenous art movements, like Papunya Tula, often started with older, traditional leaders. The art created by Rosella and her group shows how diverse and exciting modern Indigenous art can be.

Rosella's Awards and Recognition

When Rosella Namok was just 21 years old, she won an important award. It was the Australian Heritage Commission's Lin Onus Youth Award for Indigenous art. She won it for her painting called Kungkay and Yiipay in Salmon Season. The judges said her painting captured a special, quick moment in a lasting pattern.

In October 2003, Rosella's large painting, Today Now... We All Got To Go By The Same Laws, won the High Court Centenary Art Prize. This painting had nine panels. Justice Gleeson from the court described it as "bold, beautiful, confident and contemporary." The artwork showed how modern laws grew from ancient Aboriginal traditions. Later that same month, a magazine called The Bulletin with Newsweek named Rosella as one of the ten "brightest, most creative" people in Australian arts.

Rosella Namok creates a lot of art. By 2007, when she was 28, she had already held eighteen solo art shows. These shows took place in many different places, including New York and Berlin. She is seen as a very important modern Australian artist. Her artworks are highly valued in the art world.

Rosella Namok has a partner named Wayne Butcher. They have two children. Her son Isaiah was born in September 1997, and Zane was born in March 2001. Rosella lives in North Queensland. Interestingly, Zane was born in Sydney. Rosella had traveled to Sydney to submit a painting for an art competition called the Wynne Prize. But she went straight from the airport to the hospital, where Zane was born!

Where You Can See Her Art

Rosella Namok's artworks are part of many important collections. You can find her paintings in these places:

• Art Gallery of New South Wales
• Art Gallery of South Australia
• Art Gallery of Western Australia
• Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
• National Gallery of Australia
• National Gallery of Victoria
• Queensland Art Gallery
• Adelaide Festival Centre
• Federal Court of Australia
• Kluge-Ruhe Museum, University of Virginia
• High Court of Australia

Awards Rosella Has Won

• 2000 – Lin Onus Youth Award, Australian Heritage Commission's Indigenous Heritage Art Awards
• 2003 – High Court of Australia Centenary Art Prize

See also

• Contemporary Indigenous Australian art