Given the recent vibrant activity within the Australian art market, both locally and internationally, throughout the first half of 2025, we are delighted to share insights from D'Lan Davidson in this mid-year Art Market Report...

“Alhalker Country is ours—so is the anwerlarr yam. I paint my plant, the one I am named after—those seeds I am named after. Kam is its name. Kam. I am named after the anwerlarr plant. I am Kam!” - Emily Kam Kngwarray

We are delighted to announce Cross Currents: Collecting Australian Indigenous Art With Respect + Resonance, a panel discussion and private reception in partnership with Asia Society, New York on Tuesday May 27 at 6.30pm.

In a breakthrough for Australian art history, D’Lan Contemporary has confirmed that a painting by Papunya Tula pioneer Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri is one of twenty works commissioned for Art of Aboriginal Australia – one of the first international exhibitions of contemporary Aboriginal art, held in 1974. The work, Kangaroo (Malu) Dreaming (1973), will feature in the gallery’s tenth anniversary edition of SIGNIFICANT, opening 7 May 2025 across its Melbourne, Sydney and New York locations.

D’Lan Contemporary is delighted to announce USD$1.4 million in sales from its inaugural presentation at TEFAF Maastricht 2025, which brought together over 260 galleries from over 20 countries, and thousands of visitors from all over the world. Director & Founder, D’Lan Davidson said, ‘It has been an honour to participate in this prestigious Fair and to present the work of Australia’s most revered First Nations artists to an international audience for the first time at TEFAF Maastricht.

'In a first for TEFAF Maastricht, visitors to this year’s fair will encounter a booth dedicated entirely to Australia’s First Nations art. The show is set to feature over a dozen artists, working from the 1960s to present day, providing a broad picture of the contemporary Indigenous Australian art movement.' writes Will Higginbotham for The New York Times

We are pleased to announce that our annual secondary market exhibition, SIGNIFICANT will be presented across all three of our galleries–in Melbourne, Sydney, and New York–in 2025, in a new initiative that aims to establish an international selling platform for Australian First Nations art.Previously a mainstay of our flagship Melbourne gallery, the annual exhibition, SIGNIFICANT has, for the past seven years, offered exceptional secondary market works of art by leading modern and contemporary artists to Australian and international collectors.The new format exhibition, which will take place 8 May–4 July 2025 across all three sites, is intended to further elevate awareness of and appreciation for Australian First Nations art and to provide increased exposure and access to a broader, international marketplace.

Over the past year, Australian First Nations art has experienced a remarkable ascent in international prominence, and I am delighted to present this year’s Art Market Report from an international perspective – a perspective which we are fortunate to be a part of. This significant rise in visibility, awareness, and appreciation has been propelled by several macro factors, including a select group of high-profile gallerists exhibiting and participating in major international art fairs.  However, there was no more important factor than Archie Moore’s historical win at the Venice Biennale 2024. Several other museum exhibitions which have had or will have considerable contributary effect are Maḏayin at Asia Society in New York, (and the corresponding symposium event at The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art), Emily Kam Kngwarray’s retrospective which travels to the Tate Modern, London in July 2025, and finally, the announcement of The National Gallery of Victoria’s collaborative exhibition The Stars we do not See at The National Gallery of Art in Washington. So, without further ado, let’s dissect this year’s art market results:

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Luke Scholes as Director, D'Lan Contemporary.Luke's focus will be to support the gallery’s vision to further collaborate with and represent First Nations artists and art centres, and to present a series of curated primary and secondary market exhibitions at its galleries in Melbourne, Sydney, New York, and internationally.

As with many senior Australian First Nations culture keepers who turn to painting, Goowoomji Nyunkuny Paddy Bedford’s deep cultural knowledge was a strong impetus for his late-life painting practice. He started painting for traditional ceremony at an early age and gained a deep respect for customary law through this practice. He conservatively observed its restrictions throughout his painting career, creating a visual language that brought East Kimberley painting to the world, without compromising traditional Gija conventions.

'The past few years have seen a remarkable surge in the visibility of Australian First Nations art on the global stage. A record number of First Nations artists took part in this year’s Venice Biennale—and Kamilaroi and Bigambul artist Archie Moore, who represented Australia, took home the event’s top prize. Next year, Tate Modern is hosting a solo show dedicated to Emily Kam Kngwarray, which has been developed in collaboration with the National Gallery of Australia, and the National Gallery of Victoria is touring the largest exhibition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art ever presented internationally around the US and Canada.' - Zeta Xu, Art Monthly Australasia

'Global attention to First Nations art is on the rise, with numerous institutional exhibitions and climbing auction prices. Last week, at Frieze in London, visitors could also see work by a key First Nations artist, on view with a major international dealer in the field, D’Lan Davidson.' - Eileen Kinsella, Artnet

As with many senior Australian First Nations culture keepers who turn to painting, Goowoomji Nyunkuny Paddy Bedford’s deep cultural knowledge was a strong impetus for his late-life painting practice. He started painting for traditional ceremony at an early age and gained a deep respect for customary law through this practice. He conservatively observed its restrictions throughout his painting career, creating a visual language that brought East Kimberley painting to the world, without compromising traditional Gija conventions.

As with many senior Australian First Nations culture keepers who turn to painting, Goowoomji Nyunkuny Paddy Bedford’s deep cultural knowledge was a strong impetus for his late-life painting practice. He started painting for traditional ceremony at an early age and gained a deep respect for customary law through this practice. He conservatively observed its restrictions throughout his painting career, creating a visual language that brought East Kimberley painting to the world, without compromising traditional Gija conventions.

In May this year, members of the D’Lan Contemporary team travelled to the community of Yirrkala in north-east Arnhem Land to meet with Yolŋu artist Gunybi Ganambarr. We’d come to one of Australia’s most dynamic art centres, Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka. For generations this dynamic powerhouse has been producing some of Australia’s most exciting groundbreaking artists. Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka’s ethos and success has always relied on a concentration of convergences – tradition and originality, function and beauty, education and art, culture and commodity, individual and collective, Yolŋu and everything else.