While indigenous artworks represent a small, but growing, part of the overall Australian art scene, an international tour planned for works by a group of Western Australian artists further cements the strong demand from overseas galleries and investors.
While indigenous artworks represent a small, but growing, part of the overall Australian art scene, an international tour planned for works by a group of Western Australian artists further cements the strong demand from overseas galleries and investors.
The collection of 19 works has been produced through the Canning Stock Route project, and has been invited to exhibit at the Olympic Expo Beijing 2008, the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, and the National Museum of Scotland.
The Canning project is one of several recent initiatives that signal increasing interest in indigenous artworks from curators, businesses, overseas investors and, more recently, local art investors.
Premier Alan Carpenter last month announced the creation of the inaugural Western Australian Premier's Indigenous Art Award, worth $1.1 million over four years.
The award is part of the $73 million Ignite package for the arts, announced by the state government in December 2007.
Another event that will put indigenous art in the spotlight this year is the travelling exhibition Culture Warriors: National Indigenous Art Triennal, which is coming to the WA Art Gallery in September.
The exhibition showcases the works of 26 emerging and established artists across regional, remote, and urban Australia.
The Canning project, which involved artists from nine remote communities scattered on the historic stock route, will be the only Australian cultural representation at the biggest single event outside Beijing's Olympic stadium.
The project, which aims to celebrate the stories and histories of Aboriginal people living along the route, also received invitations to tour the world, adding on to the 2010 Australian tour already planned for the collection.
BHP Billiton is the major funding partner of the Canning project, which was brokered by the Perth-based contemporary art body FORM.
"Many parts of the world have a greater awareness and appreciation (of indigenous art) than in our own country," FORM project manager Carly Davenport Acker told Business Class.
"The art coming out of WA is some of the best in the country; artworks from the Kimberley and the West Desert Land are recognised globally."
As the profile of indigenous art in WA's cultural scene increases, international and Australian investors' appetite for this art form has also grown significantly.
According to the Australian Art Sales Digest, in 1997 a total of $3.8 million was spent at auctions on indigenous art, but 10 years later, investors spent almost $24 million on indigenous art.
The average annual growth of investment in indigenous art at auctions during the past decade was 52 per cent, surpassing the growth of investment in Australian art of 47 per cent over the same period.
Record prices were set in auction rooms in 2007, with Clifford Possum's work Warlugulong reaching $2.4 million.
However, the figures show that the sector is still emerging - by comparison, $145 million was spent on non-indigenous Australian art.
Local investment in indigenous art was relatively modest 20 years ago, but Nedlands-based art collector Jo Lagerberg, who has about 500 indigenous artworks, said she has witnessed a gradual shift during the past decade.
"I started collecting occasional pieces about 20 years ago and became fascinated by Aboriginal art, but not many people were doing it at the time," she said.
"In the early 1990s you could see fabulous works that wouldn't sell for months, if you had them for sale today, someone would snap them in a week."
While many people know that the Kerry Stokes and Holmes à Court collections have high indigenous art components, other WA collectors have also cumulated significant numbers of indigenous artwork over the years.
Merenda Group director Santo Merenda, whose business focus is food and property, said he has a collection of indigenous art worth about $3 million.
According to Mr Merenda, the value of his collection increases about 20 to 25 per cent each year.
The owner of Fremantle Cappuccino strip icon Gino's, Paul Saccone, is also a keen collector of indigenous art.
While local investment is emerging, strong overseas interest in is reflected in the development of relationships between Australian entrepreneurs and government agencies with investors in Europe and America.
Austrade has been actively involved in connecting indigenous artists with foreign investors by hosting groups of buyers to the Australian outback across central and northern Australia, in partnership with the Northern Territory government.
"Gallery owners in America are interested in tapping into new artists, and from a business point of view you want to get there early and establish relationship with the artists," Austrade's Los Angeles-based Visual Arts and Services business development manager, Joel Newmann, said.
"The art market in the US in huge and you don't need to have a big share of it to make the numbers."
The program, which has been running for three years and brought five missions to Australia, has generated a total of $1.2 million worth of investment in artworks produced in the local community art centres.
"It would be hard to do what we do if you were a private buyer or by yourself. They meet people they would never have the chance to meet otherwise," senior project officer at the Department of Chief Minister of Northern Territory, Wayne Fan, said.
Mr Fan believes the Austrade initiative is also aimed at ensuring an ethical outcome of the commercial exchange, and has positive returns on the local communities.
"It's all about indigenous art centres and indigenous communities...all we do is encourage the right way of doing it by going through those art centres," Mr Fan said.