Artspace

Yhonnie Scarce

My action is sharing elements of my travel diary while I am researching on Country. Travel by road is a huge part of my studio practice and the current situation with the Covid 19 pandemic prevents me from visiting South Australia - I have been thinking about it a lot and I miss it.

Since March of this year I have been scrolling through the archive of my phone regularly so I can visit my home ‘virtually’. I tend to hoard imagery. The videos and images I have selected to share are from hundreds of photos that I have taken over the past three years.

Artist bio

Yhonnie Scarce was born in Woomera, South Australia, and belongs to the Kokatha and Nukunu peoples.

Scarce was recently announced as the winner of the prestigious Yalingwa Fellowship, 2020 and was selected for the National Gallery of Victoria’s Architecture Commission, 2019. In 2018 Scarce was the recipient of the Kate Challis RAKA award, for her contribution to the visual arts in Australia, as well as the Indigenous Ceramic Award from the Shepperton Art Museum.

Recent international exhibitions include at IKON Gallery, Birmingham, UK, Paris Photo, Paris, France, Pavilion of Contemporary Art, Milan, Italy, Museum of London, Ontario, Canada. Previous international shows include the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, India, 2018, 55th Venice Biennale collateral exhibition Personal Structures 2013, Venice, Galway Art Centre, Ireland 2016, Harvard Art Museum, Massachusetts 2016, Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Museum, Virginia, USA 2012.
Scarce was curated into the 2020 Adelaide Biennial at the Art Gallery of South Australia and has co-curated Violent Salt at Artspace Mackay, which will tour Australia until 2021. In 2018 Scarce was curated into major shows and public commissions throughout Australia, including the Biennale of Australian Art, Ballarat; Installation Contemporary, Sydney, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne and the Newcastle Art Gallery. Previous major shows include The National, Art Gallery of NSW 2017, The 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial 2017, 19th Biennale of Sydney, 2014 and a site-specific installation at the Art Gallery of South Australia as part of Tarnanthi Festival of Contemporary and Torres Strait Islander Art, 2016. In 2012 Scarce held a residency and exhibited at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Museum, University of Virginia, USA and participated in Aboriginal art symposiums at Seattle Art Museum and the Hood Museum, New Hampshire.

Scarce’s work is seen in the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, The Art Gallery of South Australia, National Gallery Australia, Flinders University Art Museum, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, and the University of South Australia.