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London-based Japanese artist Tomoaki Suzuki’s practice is deeply rooted in traditional techniques and tools. Suzuki captures everyday realism with Japanese wood-carving methods.

Suzuki’s works are inspired by a diverse cast of people from his London neighbourhood, often young men and women whose personalities and attitudes are expressed through their personal style. His works have been referred to as ‘photography in sculpture’ for their scaled-down realism. Capturing each personality through the overt and nuanced details of their pose, outfit, accessories, tattoos, piercings and hairstyles, Suzuki creates a record of youth culture and trends at the time of creation.

The NGV is delighted to present a group of ten hand-carved sculptures in NGV Triennial 2020. This will include two new sculptures commissioned especially for the NGV and will be the first works by Suzuki to enter the Collection.

The NGV warmly thanks Triennial Champions Neville and Diana Bertalli who have made a leadership gift towards this important acquisition.

Currently on display in Japanese Modernism at NGV International, this exquisite woodblock print captures the essence of Japan during the transformative decade of the 1930s. It encapsulates a time of vibrant modernity, as Japan’s traditional aesthetics were influenced by European life and culture, alongside an embracing of Art Nouveau and Art Deco design.

Kobayakawa Kiyoshi is best known for images of modern Japanese women. Jazz dancer, 1934, displays a woman energetically jazz dancing. The dress’s short length and single shoulder strap design creates a sensual mood, once seen as scandalous and often associated with this era.

Kiyoshi’s close attention to detail and use of refined printing techniques are displayed in the subtle applications of soft pink gradations on the subject’s cheeks, fingertips, palms and toes. This acquisition will enable the NGV to continue to build Australia’s most comprehensive collection of Japanese woodblock prints and create inspiring displays of Japanese modernisation and twentieth-century fashion.

The NGV warmly thanks Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family who have made a leadership gift towards this important acquisition.

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Young Japanese fashion designer Tomo Koizumi was the breakout star of the autumn–winter 2019 fashion season. His off-schedule New York Fashion Week debut was one of the most talked-about debuts in recent times.

Interested in fashion as a child, Koizumi majored in Arts at university before starting to make custom garments for friends in his early twenties. Koizumi went on to become the go-to costume designer for Japanese pop stars, actors and also dressed Lady Gaga in 2016 when she visited Japan.

Top and skirt, 2019, is from Koizumi’s critically acclaimed first collection, presented at New York Fashion Week in February 2019. Characteristic of his practice, the ensemble is oversized and uses hundreds of metres of vibrantly coloured Japanese organza. In 2019, two of Koizumi’s dresses were also included in the exhibition Camp: Notes on Fashion at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

This ensemble is a striking example of this time in Koizumi’s career and will introduce this important designer into the NGV Collection.

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Vicki West is a Tasmanian Aboriginal installation artist who works with kelp, textiles, vines and seeds to create sculptural installations that speak of the impact on Tasmanian Aboriginal people of British invasion, oppressive government policies and the denial of land rights. West is a descendant of the Trawlwoolway people of north-eastern Tasmania and her Trawlwoolway heritage inspires much of her work.

West is the premier Australian practitioner of kelp. Her works range from smaller utilitarian vessels and body adornments to monumental sculptural objects and installations. West has transformed this organic medium into a powerful contemporary art form that is interwoven with her history and Country.

West works with organic materials as a way of connecting with her Ancestors, particularly the kelp and weaving traditions of Tasmanian Aboriginal women. In West’s hands the kelp takes on a more contemporary form. She brings to life objects that at first viewing appear ‘ancient’, but on closer inspection have meanings and subtexts relevant to a modern audience.

For NGV Triennial 2020 West has been commissioned to create six new vessels. The acquisition and presentation of these new pieces by West, will introduce this preeminent Tasmanian artist into the NGV Collection, expanding the breadth of our representation of Indigenous artists.

William Blake was a visionary English painter and poet of mystical themes conveyed in complex figurative imagery. This small volume contains five engravings that Blake made to illustrate ballads written by his patron, William Hayley. Blake made his living executing engravings after the designs of other artists. He also used the technique to make illustrations after his own designs, such as in these evocative engravings to Hayley’s ballads.

Through your support, this book will be a significant addition to the NGV’s acclaimed holdings of Blake’s work and will help to extend our representation of the artist’s mid career period. It will further contextualise the range and diversity of the engravings he made in response to the work of other artists and authors. The NGV is renowned for its outstanding holdings of works on paper and your support will enhance this important part of the Gallery’s Collection.

The NGV warmly thanks Hugh Morgan AC and Elizabeth Morgan who have made a leadership gift towards this important acquisition.

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A major commission for the NGV Triennial 2020 and the first collaboration of its kind, renowned British designer Faye Toogood will present two large-scale tapestries that pay homage to the NGV Collection of seventeenth-century artworks. This will be the centrepiece of a major installation including new pieces of furniture also commissioned by the NGV.

Measuring nearly three metres high and seven metres wide, Daylight tapestry depicts an imaginary landscape comprising elements drawn from a selection of Collection paintings including Jean-François van Dael’s Flowerpiece, 1811, and Jan Davidsz de Heem’s Still life with fruit, c. 1640–1650. The image is rendered in a collage effect, a visual style for which Toogood is synonymous.

Three metres high and four metres wide, Moonlight tapestry depicts an imaginary village by night, composed of elements drawn from a selection of seventeenth-century prints from the Collection including Hendrick Goltzius’s The Adoration of the shepherds, c.1600, and The untangling of Chaos, 1589.

The acquisition of these spectacular tapestries will enable NGV visitors to view the historical collections through the contemporary lens of world renowned designer.

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London-based artist Des Lawrence is known for his paintings and drawings inspired by newspaper obituaries of notable individuals. His hyper-realistic portraits pay homage to each of his subjects, who are memorialised by an accomplishment achieved in their lifetime.

The use of obituaries pose complex questions around portraiture, the role of history and mortality itself. Lawrence presents these works as a contemporary form of ‘history painting’, a genre which emphasises narrative over style.

Rendered in enamel paint on aluminium and measuring nearly three metres wide, Henry Worsley, 2019, memorialises the late British explorer Lieutenant Colonel Alastair Edward Henry Worsley OBE. Leading successful expeditions across the Antarctic in 2008, 2011 and 2016, he set out to complete the first solo and unaided crossing of the Antarctic on foot. After travelling for 1450 km, the exhausted Worsley called for help. Despite being rescued, he sadly passed away.

Henry Worsley is Lawrence’s tribute to the polar explorer, represented as an icebreaker ship in Antarctic waters. To be presented in NGV Triennial 2020, the acquisition of this large-scale painting will be an important legacy of this exhibition.

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Michael Riley was a Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi man born in 1960 on the Talbragar Reserve outside Dubbo, New South Wales. Riley challenged non-Indigenous perceptions of the Indigenous experience in Australia through his artistic practice. His career spanned portraiture, social documentary, conceptual photography and film. Beginning his art practice with black and white photographs, Riley soon expanded his artform to incorporate large-scale colour images.

Untitled (cow), 2000, presents a surreal image of a Hereford cow floating in a cloud. The photograph shows that although graziers have changed the surface of the land, Aboriginal beauty and spirituality are still there. Cloud was the artist’s last photographic series before his passing in 2004 and is his most acclaimed. In 2006, Cloud was selected for permanent display as part of the Indigenous Art Commissions at the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris.

Through your support, the NGV will acquire Riley’s most celebrated work and continue to share the diverse stories of our First Nations people.

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Joi T. Arcand is a Nehiyaw visual artist from Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, Saskatchewan, who currently resides in Ottawa, Ontario. Her practice revolves around the Cree language and is driven by her insatiable desire to speak and understand Cree.

Arcand creates neon signs as a way of disrupting audience’s encounters with language. Language was just one way in which the Canadian government took away culture from the Cree people and disrupted the transfer of knowledge between generations of Cree families.

For Arcand, it is important to her practice that she makes Cree language hyper-visible in the world. Canadian society caters to English and French speakers. Through her neon artworks, Arcand reminds audiences that Cree language wasn’t lost, but rather it was taken, and to reimagine a world where the dominant language in Canada comes from its First Nations people. Often Arcand does not provide translations, challenging viewers to take the time to look up the language on their own. The work Arcand is making for NGV Triennial 2020 does come with a translation, and is titled pimiciwan pimātisowin, which translates in English to ‘the flow of life’.

Arcand seeks to disrupt the comfort of the audience’s own language and challenge them to consider other world views. To be presented in NGV Triennial 2020 this work will introduce Arcand and the Cree language to the Collection.

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The NGV will direct your donation generally to the Annual Appeal.