Mildura is a town littered with hot rods and watered by a pub called Heaven. Palm trees and a flooded Murray await our arrival as we pull up to NAP Contemporary, a car dealership turned art gallery located on the city’s main boulevard.
This river-bound city is a multicultural place. Many migrants, including my parents, spent time here picking fruit before obtaining their visas. A divide across the city remains apparent today with a great influx of culturally diverse people. Contemporary art came to Mildura between 1961 and 1988 by way of the Mildura Sculpture Triennial. Its influence is evident as you drive around the area and pass large bronze sculptures from the seventies. Regional and suburban museums like Heide and McClelland have developed an affinity for these kinds of sculptural installations, a selling point for the vast acreages of local estate owners.
NAP Contemporary deviates from Mildura’s sculptural conventions with a painting-oriented gallery founded by Riley Davison and Erica Tarquinio. They’re a hip couple with a background working in central Australia at Indigenous art centres. Now they have settled in the “Dura” to establish a fresh commercial gallery. NAP is composed of two gallery rooms divided by a large wall. The newly renovated ex-VW dealership is fitted for optimum commercial display—large glass windows replace the exterior walls, allowing golden-hour light to flood the gallery.
Margarita Kontev is a writer and emerging curator from Melbourne/Naarm. She co-founded the artist-run gallery Wethouse.
This review was made possible thanks to the generous support of MERIDIAN SCULPTURE.
