The 5th National Indigenous Art Triennial opens this weekend at the National Gallery of Australia, featuring a remarkable recreation of Albert Namatjira's historic home as its centerpiece. The exhibition, curated by artist Tony Albert and titled 'After the Rain,' represents a powerful statement of cultural resilience and hope following Australia's failed Indigenous voice to parliament referendum.

The centerpiece of the exhibition is a stunning multicolored stained glass recreation of the house that Western Arrarnta landscape painter Albert Namatjira built in 1940 on the banks of the Lhara Pinta (Finke River) in Central Australia. The original two-room sandstone and lime home with an iron roof, where Namatjira planted watermelon crops, still stands today at Ntaria/Hermannsburg. Tony Albert, who only recently discovered the house's existence, believes it deserves recognition similar to Frida Kahlo's famous La Casa Azul in Mexico City.

The glasshouse installation, created through a collaboration between Canberra Glassworks and the Iltja Ntjarra Art Centre in Mparntwe/Alice Springs, is illuminated from within like 'this breath or this heartbeat,' according to curator Albert. The project represents 57 artists from Namatjira's family and community, including the Hermannsburg Potters, who have recreated objects from the artist's home in painted clay: his boots typically left at the front door, his brushes and easel, and his handwritten letters.

The historical significance of Namatjira's home extends beyond its artistic value. While the famous watercolorist was permitted to build this modest home on his Country at Ntaria/Hermannsburg, where he lived until 1950, he was later denied applications to buy a Northern Territory grazing lease and to build a home in Alice Springs because he was Aboriginal. This story of discrimination resonates throughout the triennial's themes of resilience and cultural revival.

Despite the disappointment of the failed Indigenous voice referendum, participating artists express renewed hope and determination. Twenty-five-year-old Gumbaynggirr artist Aretha Brown, one of the youngest artists ever invited to exhibit, captures this sentiment: 'It feels, after the referendum, as if everything has been burnt down. But now the seeds are going to come back stronger and greener.' Her massive semicircular black and white mural greets visitors with a timeline spanning from the arrival of British ships in Australia in the late 18th century to the 2023 referendum.

Vincent Namatjira, great-grandson of Albert Namatjira and the first Indigenous winner of the Archibald Prize, has contributed 15 individual portraits of the triennial artists, along with a large canvas depicting his famous great-grandfather on Country wearing a robe and crown topped with the Aboriginal flag. His work 'Royal Albert' (2025) serves as both tribute and statement of cultural pride.

The exhibition addresses a longstanding scheduling issue that concerned curator Tony Albert. When he first discussed curating the triennial, Albert questioned National Gallery of Australia director Nick Mitzevich about why a show billed as a triennial was being held only every five years. Previous iterations were held in 2007, 2012, 2017, and 2022. Albert explains, 'As First Nations people, I feel it makes us look a bit silly, the fact we've got this triennial that never happens every three years.' A gallery spokesperson confirmed that Mitzevich, appointed in 2018, has committed to holding the triennial every three years, with a planned 2020 iteration delayed by the COVID pandemic.

Environmental themes permeate the exhibition, reflecting both destruction and renewal. Kuz/Peiudu artist Jimmy John Thaiday's video work 'Just Beneath the Surface' meditates on unpredictable rain patterns and rising tides in a plea to save the Torres Strait Islands from erosion. Filmed from a bird's eye view of waters off Erub, the work highlights how ghost nets abandoned by fishing vessels threaten marine life but are salvaged by Erub artists to create artworks like Thaiday's suspended totem of the waumer (frigatebird).

Kamilaroi artist Warraba Weatherall's installation 'Mother-Tongue' creates a sobering connection between environmental destruction and cultural suppression. His work features a film depicting deforestation projected onto nine gray autopsy tables adorned with Kamilaroi kinship designs and shallow troughs that would normally catch a corpse's blood. The title reflects how Kamilaroi language shares words between tree and human anatomy - 'yulay' means both skin and bark. At 38, Weatherall follows his father Uncle Bob Weatherall's legacy in repatriating Indigenous ancestral remains while pursuing his own educational goals, having recently submitted his PhD on Kamilaroi kinship, knowledge, and language at Griffith University.

Familial and cultural legacies form another significant thread throughout the triennial. Arrernte/Kalkadoon artist Thea Anamara Perkins, 33, presents intimate portraits of her famous family, including work honoring her grandfather, activist Charles Perkins, leader of the 1965 Freedom Ride. Her artistic practice has evolved from flattened human subjects to thick, lush strokes similar to how she paints Country, reflecting the Indigenous Dreaming concept of 'everywhen' - past, present, and future occurring in a continuum.

The exhibition also celebrates LGBTQ+ Indigenous identity through the work of Dylan Mooney, who grew up in Mackay learning stories from his Yuwi and Torres Strait Islander mother and South Sea Islander father. Despite being legally blind and using a Microsoft Surface Studio 2 art computer to reduce eye strain, the 30-year-old has created large, colorful banners of queer couples entwined in Country. Mooney credits the late Gua Gua/Erub/Mer artist Destiny Deacon, who came out as lesbian in the 1970s, for laying the groundwork for his celebration of queer love.

Deacon also coined the inclusive term 'Blak,' dropping the 'c' from 'Black' in what writer Daniel Browning describes as 'a decisive rhetorical act of self-definition' because she grew up being called 'a black c.' Curator Albert explains that 'Blak' is used throughout the exhibition catalogue in Deacon's memory because 'Blak isn't a color, it's a state of being.'

Mooney sees his work within a global context of Indigenous queer art, noting current exhibitions by the late Emily Kam Kngwarray at London's Tate Modern and the National Gallery of Victoria's 'The Stars We Do Not See' in Washington DC, the largest exhibition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art ever presented in North America. Having exhibited at the Art Toronto fair in October, Mooney senses growing global appreciation for First Nations Australian art.

'We are going through a stage of enlightenment,' Mooney observes. 'People from around the world are wanting to see truth-telling, art that has meaning and history behind it - and that's very important and empowering to know.' He hopes to mentor emerging gay Blak artists, ensuring the continuation of this important cultural work into the future.

The triennial runs at the National Gallery of Australia in Kamberri/Canberra until April 26, after which it will begin a three-year tour of every Australian state and territory. The exhibition represents not just artistic achievement but a powerful statement of cultural survival, adaptation, and hope for the future of Indigenous Australian communities.