Dr Una Rey

Una Rey completed undergraduate studies in Fine Art at The Northern Territory University (now CDU) in Darwin in 1995. She worked for several years in Aboriginal owned community art centres in Central Australia and the Top End and managed galleries in Darwin before moving to Newcastle in 2006 to take up a PhD (completed in 2009). She teaches in Art History and Theory at the University of Newcastle and works as an independent arts writer,  researcher and  curator. She also maintains a studio-based painting practice.

Research Expertise
Key research interest is in Australian contemporary art practices which include painting and art writing, intercultural and cross-cultural practices (non-Indigenous and Aboriginal); landscape and narrative are of particular interest, as well as  curatorial and art critical expressions of these practices and how they relate to the artist's studio in all its manifestations. 

Teaching Expertise
Teaching across all art history and theory subjects in the undergraduate degree: Critical Studies, Museology, Professional Practice, Australian Art, Contemporary Art Issues, Aesthetics, Analysis of the Visual Image, Writing & art Theory, Supervision areas include Aboriginal and non-Indigenous creative engagements, landscape and narrative in Australian painting; In 2011 Rey wrote a series of lectures for Adelaide University and the Art Gallery of South Australia as part of their online Indigenous Art graduate diploma.

Administrative Expertise
Arts administration and arts management; curatorial and project management skills; Office, Excel, SAM database, Mac & PC.

Curatorial Experience
Una Rey curated the large-scale  exhibition Black White & Restive: cross-cultural initiatives in contemporary Australian art at Newcastle Art Gallery (26 May - 7 August 2016). The exhibition was built on research (in collaboration with the University of Wollongong) addressing the myriad ways that Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian artists  have engaged with Aboriginal art-forms, particularly painting, since the mid-20th century. Rey also coordinated a one-day symposium on the opening weekend that explored the challenges of cross-cultural collaboration, appropriation, influence and responsiveness in contemporary art practices. 

In 2011 Rey curated Speaking in Colour at Newcastle Art Gallery drawing exclsuively on the Gallery's collection to highlight the innovative and distinct use of and conceptions of colour in diverse Aboriginal communities. The Ntaria Suite of 27 Hermannsberg watercolours purchased by the Gallery from the collection of T.G.H Strehlow were a feature of the exhibition, which was attended by Lenie Namatjira and Ivy Pareroultja, artists and descendants of the founding Hermannsburg/Ntaria painters.