Contemporary art is a reflection of who we are, where we come from and what we want to talk about, according to the Art Gallery of NSW's Maud Page.
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Viewed in this way, a new survey of Australian work held across four Sydney art institutions is a loud and lively conversation indeed.
More than 80 artists working on 48 new projects are included in The National 4: Australian Art Now opening on Friday.
They are on show at the Art Gallery of NSW, Carriageworks, the Museum of Contemporary Art and for the first time at Campbelltown Arts Centre in western Sydney.
"Every aspect of the way we experience the world is somehow encompassed within the work," Museum of Contemporary Art director Suzanne Cotter said.
One theme that resonates across all four venues is storytelling and knowledge that spans generations, Page told reporters on Thursday.
At the Art Gallery of NSW, a collection of 24 paintings by Thea Anamara Perkins titled Lhere looks at snapshots from her family's past, anchored by a large landscape from Telegraph Station in Alice Springs.
Then at Carriageworks, there's Milniyawuy - Celestial River by artist Naminapu Maymuru-White, a Milky Way in black and white ochre on stringybark panels that takes up a whole gallery wall.
But there are smaller concerns too, according to Page, with through-lines of everyday beauty, community and the perseverance of artistic practice in difficult times.
At Campbelltown Arts Centre, artists Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan and their children have made a series of large installations from their accumulated possessions, as the family cleared out their home of 17 years.
The centrepiece resembles a giant upturned canoe, while the familiarity and strangeness of a wardrobe crammed with layers of everyday items is surprisingly moving.
Overall, The National stretches from sculpture to videos, paintings and sound installations, even large-scale textiles made from unravelled op-shop jumpers.
The biennial survey has attracted more than one million visitors since it began in 2017, a great many people engaging in the conversation of contemporary art.
AAP travelled with the assistance of the Art Gallery of NSW.
Australian Associated Press
