Bronwyn Bancroft

Bronwyn Bancroft is probably best known for her fabric designs and her work in the fashion and textile industry. She is a member of the Boomali Aboriginal Artists Ko-operative and lives and works in Balmain, Sydney.

She grew up in north western NSW and after completing school she travelled to Canberra where in 1980 she completed a Diploma in Visual Arts at the Canberra school of Arts. Her paintings show a joyful love of pattern and colour reminiscent of the dots, arcs and circles of desert paintings yet with an explosive mobile quality that is purely contemporary. Her paintings and designs reveal an artist excited by the possibilities in life, eager to explore many new directions and to distil the full experience of her Aboriginal visual heritage into a personal expression of her contemporary life.

Collections
Artbank, Sydney.
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
Australian Museum, Sydney.
Collection of National AIDS Campaign, Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health.
Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide.
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
National Museum of Australia, Canberra.
The Kelton Foundation, Santa Monica, U.S.A.
Group Exhibitions
1979 Diploma Exhibition, Canberra School of Art.
1980 Graduate Diploma Exhibition, Canberra School of Art.
1982 Fashion Parade, Canberra.
1986 Fashion Parades in Sydney and Melbourne.
1986 The Third National Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin
1987 Fashion Parades in Paris, Sydney, Canberra.
1988 Fashion parades in Sydney, Armidale, Kyogle.
1988 De Facto Apartheid, Boomalli Exhibition, Performance Space, Sydney
1988 Boomalli Exhibition, Tin Sheds, Sydney University.
1988 ANCAAA and Boomalli, Boomalli Ko-op, Chippendale, Sydney.
1989 Australian Fashion: The Contemporary Art of Dress, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in conjunction with Power House Museum.
1989 A Koori Perspective, Artspace, Sydney.
1989 ‘Aboriginal Women’, Craft Centre Gallery.
1989 Exhibition of Boomalli Artists, Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney.1989 Heidelberg & Heritage for Wilderness Society.
1989 Womens Show, Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative.
1989 Boomalli Breaking Boundaries, Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative.
1990 Lineage Landscapes, Boomalli.
1993 Wiyana/Perisferia(Periphery), Satellite Exhibiton of the 9th Biennale of Sydney, The Performance Space, Sydney and touring regional galleries of NSW.
1994 + Positive, Artists Addressing A.I.D.S., Campbelltown City Art Gallery, NSW.
1994 Don’t leave me this way, art in the age of AIDS, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
1994 Yiribana, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
1995 Women’s Views-Art, Science and the Environment, Australian Museum, Sydney
Bibliography
Aboriginal Arts Management Association, 1990, Contemporary Aboriginal Art 1990 – from Australia (presented by the Aboriginal Arts Committee, Australia Council and Third Eye Centre, Glasgow), exhib. cat., Redfern, New South Wales. (C)
Artlink Autumn 1990 (Featured artist)
Wallace, D., Desmond, M., Caruana, W., 1991, Flash Pictures, exhib. cat., National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.