Dr Virginia Keft

Artist Bio

Dr. Virginia Keft is a proud Muruwari woman, living and working on Dharawal Country (Wollongong) and Gadigal Country (Sydney). She is a multi-disciplinary award-winning artist, curator, First Nations producer, and scholar. Her practice moves between the mediums of painting, sculpture, weaving, mixed-media, installation and wood-work. Dr Keft was recently announced the winner of The Grace Cossington Smith Art Award for 2024, the winner of the Du Rietz Art Awards 2024, and winner of the 2024 Stanthorpe Art Prize.

Dr Keft’s work is a statement on the resilience of tradition and the persistence of cultural memory. Her work weaves themes of home, family, and the natural world with narratives of Country with ‘truth telling’ through a First Nations lens. She currently holds the position of Producer, First Nations at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia, where she leads, bangawarra Art Yarns: for older and Elder mob. She is Lecturer of Indigenous Art and Culture at The University of Sydney. Virginia is project lead for Weaving Collective - a partnership between the Powerhouse Museum and Parramatta Artist Studios (PAS) that will oversee the creation of a weaving garden on the new Parramatta Powerhouse site.

Artists statement & inspiration

Dr. Virginia Keft’s multidisciplinary practice utilises natural materials, such as, Emu feathers, Quandong seeds, and foraged materials including, fibres, bark, and leaves from Eucalyptus trees and native plants. Working across weaving, sculpture, painting, drawing, botanical-printmaking and installation, Virginia examines textures and materials that evoke elements of Country - presenting them in a manner that is both contemporary, yet honours her Muruwari cultural identity.

Virginia Keft, Birthday Yellow (wattle on Country), 2022, Charcoal, ink, pencil, paint pen, raffia on canvas, 92 x 123 cm

Dr Keft speaks about the central recurring motif of the Flying Fox in her practice,

“Matjam is the muruwari word for Flying Fox. These animals appear throughout my work in paint, fibre, and in shadow to conjure the symbolic representation of community and celebrate connection to place and family.”

Dr Keft’s recent work invites audiences to consider the multiplicity of the notion of ‘home’:

“Home, like Country, is more than a place. It is land, sky, water, and spirit. It is a feeling, a connection, a memory. Home is hybrid, woven, and deeply connected to stories and cultural ways of being and knowing”.

Drawing inspiration from the different places she calls home - the suburbs, the inner city, the wide brown spaces of the Australian outback, and the lush coastal landscape of her home on Dharawal Country, Dr Keft tells a story of layered meaning and nuanced connections that are intimately tied to respect for people, community, culture, Country and story.

Upcoming shows

Virginia’s work is currently on show:
Newtown ArtSeat: Hanging around on Gadigal Country on display until 4 December (King Street, near Pride Square)

Fisher’s Ghost Art Award: Campbelltown Arts Centre, 1 Art Gallery Rd, Campbelltown

Keep the Fire Burning: North Sydney Coal Loader

Forthcoming
In March 2025, Virginia will exhibit alongside twenty-five Australian artists in an international exhibition of contemporary jewellery and design in Munich, Germany. (The Familiar in the Foreign - Jewellery from the Southern Hemisphere, Galerie Handwerk, Munich Germany [forthcoming])

virginiakeft.com

@virginia_keft

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