By JILLIAN MUNDY

Robert Fielding has taken out the lucrative Hadley’s Art Prize with Landscape – his painting of piled rusting and abandoned cars, which hold memories of journeys made, people who travelled in them and much more.

Fielding is the fourth artist connected to the APY Lands awarded top spot in the landscape award’s nine years – something the acclaimed Pitjantjatjara/Aranda artist from Mimili is considerably proud of.

“Kunmanara Peter Mungkuri OAM, 2017, Tuppy Ngintja Goodwin, 2022, Vicki Yatjiki Cullinan, 2023. And myself now, 2026. To stand alongside those artists is something I’ve never taken for granted,” Fielding said.

“It speaks to something much bigger than one artist or one painting alone.

“It speaks to the strengths of our communities, the strengths of our art centres – how important that hub is, and the generosity of our Elders, and the importance of continuation… to tell our stories, our Tjukurpa, our voice… through our relationships with Tjukurpa, the land, the landscapes.”

Vehicles like the ones Fielding depicts are part of the landscape around Mimili community, about 500km south of Alice Springs. Desert roads are hard on vehicles, with tow trucks few and far between.

“There’s a lot of important people that owned these cars,” Fielding said.

“Every car has a story… it has a history.

“Someone will come in and say – I know whose car that is, it’s like – I had that HQ, I had this, I had that, I had that Ford, I had that Datsun.”

Fielding said they represent relationship, community, families, memories, navigation, passage, movement, travelling, going, returning, space and pathway.

“There is secrecy hidden within my work,” he said.

“It is not decay, it is life, it is people, it is about places, places travelled and how you can embrace people to tell their stories.

“People often ask me about the abandoned cars in my work.

“For me, they’re never just a car. They are memories. They are families. They are ceremony – inma. They are journey. They are evidence that people have lived, travelled, and cared for these places.

“Country holds all these stories – it doesn’t separate the old from the new – it carries everything, metal, dust, memory, culture, joy, loss. Everything becomes part of the landscape, the landscape I am renowned for now.”

For Fielding, it is not so much about landscape, but relationships – with Country, Elders, community and himself, something he has been learning about his whole life.

With the percentage of prize money he retains for himself he plans travel to Aotearoa/New Zealand to learn about the culture there, which he is fascinated with.

Fielding’s practice includes photography, painting and sculpture. He has won several major awards including the 2023 Bowness Photography Prize and NATSIAA works on paper in 2015 and 2017.

Two of the four honourable mentions, the equivalent of runners-up, awarded to Aboriginal artists were Pitjantjatjara woman Betty Muffler, a ngangkari (healer) and artist from Indulkana in the APY Lands, and cross-disciplinary creative-led researcher and artist Brenda Croft from the Gurindji/Malngin/Mudburra peoples of the NT and of Anglo-Australian/ British/ Chinese/ German/ Irish/ Scottish heritage.

Winners came from a pool of 27 finalists selected from 550 entries.

The exhibition of finalists’ works is at Hadley’s Orient Hotel, Nipaluna/Hobart, until August 23.

A public program of events runs alongside the exhibition, including artist talks, workshops, exhibition tours and family days. There was also a residency prize, packing room prize, art handlers award and student prize, plus a people’s choice award – the winner of which will be announced on August 19.

Entries for 2027 are due to open January 18. Next year will be the 10th anniversary of the prize.