Kyra Mancktelow's work is visceral and thought-provoking – but even as an emerging artist with a distinct voice, it's important to her that people glean their own meaning from her pieces.
A Quandamooka woman with links to the Madigan people of Cunnamulla, the Logan-based artist is making her mark on the Australian arts scene with a growing body of work that includes sculptures, prints, ceramics, weavings and paintings.
At only 24, Kyra has a major public artwork in the City of Logan (with more to come), her pieces feature in the N.Smith Gallery in Sydney, and her first solo exhibtiion, Unsilenced, is now on show at Logan Art Gallery.
Kyra has a deep respect for generations of artists who have come before her, and Unsilenced is her contribution to sharing to sharing untold histories of Australia, noting 'it's a drop in the ocean of what needs to be told.'
'A lot of traditional practices, and a lot of Indigenous history – especially recent, local Indigenous history – has been silenced,' Kyra says.
'This is the start of unsilencing voices and practices.'
Kyra sees her work as a way to invite a conversation – and the momeny of connection between the viewer and the art is where it begins. What she hopes is to spark a curiosity to learn more: to start a conversation that might lead to a better understanding of history.
'I love watching people experience my work, seeing the different expressions on their faces. My role is to tell the stories, and people cam take from them what they want.'
Kyra discovered art at high school, but it wasn't until she enrolled in the Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art at Queensland College of Art that she truly started to express herself emotionally.
'I went in wanted to be a painter and fell in love with print-making. It's now one of the main ways I express story and history,' Kyra says.
'Mark-making gives me the opportunity to portray concepts in ways painting can't.'
Painting, though, is how she first made her mark in the City of Logan. One of her works is now a major landmark in Boronia Heights – a giant mural on the Chester Park water tower – and she'll have an installation pieces featuring in the Beenleigh Town Square refurbishment (in John Lane).
'I love that I'm starting my career at home,' she says.
The mural was the start of her professional career and led to a smaller recreation on canvas becoming part of the Logan Art Collection (and which now features in the concurrent Elders' Choice exhibition also on display at the gallery).
