MOUNT ISA, Australia: Indigenous artist, Glenda McCulloch, shares her culture and Kalkadoon surroundings with people all over the world through her paintings on covered concretes slabs in Mount Isa.
The artist was brought up by her parents in the far north-west of Queensland along with her eight siblings.
McCulloch focuses on creating colourful Aboriginal art that she sells to people all around Australia.
The majority of her customers are non-Indigenous.
The artist said it was a fantastic and great opportunity to share her craft, heritage, and culture with as many people as possible.
“I’ve sold paintings everywhere: Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, Brisbane — just all over the show,” she said.
“A lot of my customers are white people actually, which is good to see that they’re interested. It’s a good way to share our culture with them,” she remarked.
She calls her art “contemporary” and is inspired by the landscape around outback Queensland.
“I love Mount Isa’s landscape! It’s beautiful: the reds, the greens, the pinks. Every one of my paintings has those earthy tones in them,” she said.
“I’ve tried to put blue in but every time I do that I feel like it’s coastal and I just can’t do it.”
After advertising her paintings on Instagram, McCulloch found the demand for her art was far greater than she expected.
“I’ve just about sold every painting I’ve painted,” she revealed.
“Someone always loves it — they see something in it, and they know they want it.”
Perth-based art expert, Ian Plunkett, has been working in the Aboriginal art industry for around 30 years.
“There’s been enormous growth, and I think the biggest change has been people buying art over the internet,” he said.
Almost 70% of his clients who purchased artworks were of European descent, and he has had international customers buying from the United States, England, Germany, Scandinavia, France, China, South Korea, Malaysia, Romania, Singapore, South America and Jordan.
Number of Australians using the internet to access arts content has risen to 56% according to a report by the Australia Council for the Arts.
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