The National Cultural Commission in partnership with Paradise Palette is hosting the first-ever PNG Contemporary Exhibition at the Cairns Art Center, Cairns, Australia, that will run from May 25th until the 16th of June 2023. Arts Industry Manager and Development officer of the National Cultural Commission Mr. Hillary Miria says NCC signed an MOU with Paradise Palette last year to work. He adds that this partnership will give PNG Contemporary Artists, who usually sell their work on the streets, an opportunity to showcase their art work in Brisbane. “We chose to bring this Contemporary Art Exhibition to Cairns for the first time this year year as it is a multi-culturally diverse city, where there are a lot of tourists. So, it is a new market that we want to explore and open up a business in.” Interested Papua New Guinean contemporary artists who want to showcase and sell their pieces of art can fill in an application form available on the NCC website. You have to be 18 years and older to apply. It is free to apply and interested artists are required to submit 3 original pieces of work on 100cm by 150cm canvases no later than the 17th of April 2023. “How it works is, the gallery exhibits the art and when it is sold, they get a commission of 15% from the sale, the National Cultural Commission gets a 10% and the remaining 75% of the sale is the return of the artists.” Despite the late notice, Mr. Miria is expecting a lot of submissions of art in the coming days and said that the pieces of work will go thru a panel, to make sure it comes with quality and need to be vibrant and striking paintings selected for the exhibition. “We want to be able to help our contemporary artists, to sell their art internationally. When you see contemporary art being sold outside hotels and craft markets, you don’t see the significance of the art. But when it is exhibited properly in an art gallery setting that is when you see the uniqueness and true value of the work.” “That is why this exhibition is important because it provides an avenue that PNG contemporary artists may otherwise, not have access to.”