Lorraine Connelly-Northey
Australia
Born: Swan Hill, Victoria, Australia 1962
Language group: Waradgerie, Southern Riverine region
Lorraine Connelly-Northey, photo: Michael Stewart
Biography
Lorraine Connelly-Northey was born and raised on the adjoining cultural boundaries of the Wamba Wamba and Wadi Wadi peoples, known today as the township of Swan Hill in the north-west of Victoria. Over the last decade she has been living on her mother’s land of connection, Waradgerie (Wiradjuri) country.
Connelly-Northey continues to expand her cultural knowledge to gain inspiration for her art practice. This knowledge allows her to create boundless, rustic metal sculptural representations of Aboriginal–Australian fibre bags, also known as bush bags. The Art Gallery of New South Wales acquired four of these in 2008.
In 2020 Connelly-Northey was one of the artists commissioned by the Art Gallery to create work for the Sydney Modern Project, the transformation of the institution into a two-building art museum campus. She has produced a collection of narrbong-galang on an epic scale which are prominently displayed in the 20-metre-long window of the Yiribana Gallery, showcasing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art on the new building’s entrance level, and visible to the public both day and night.
