Avril

Avril Quaill (b. 1958) is a Quandamooka artist, curator and arts administrator. Two years after graduating from Sydney College of the Arts in 1985, Quaill received an Australia Council Visual Arts Fellowship to take part in workshops at the Raminginning Arts Crafts centre (later Bula’bula Arts) in Arnhem Land. A founding member of the Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative in Sydney, she became its chairperson in 1989. Quaill is Creative Director of the Quandamooka Festival on North Stradbroke Island, has been Artistic Director of the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair and for Arts Queensland, and was the Principal Project Officer for the Queensland Indigenous Arts Marketing and Export Agency. As a curator she held positions at the National Gallery of Australia and Queensland Art Gallery. Quaill has served on many committees including the Indigenous Advisory Panel at Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art; the National Cultural Heritage Committee; and Indigenous Reference Committee, Museum of Contemporary Art. She is currently Acting Head of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Engagement with the Queensland Museum Network.

Michael Riley and Quaill first met at the Sydney College of the Arts in 1984. This 1986 portrait of Quaill holding a cigarette was first exhibited in NADOC '86 Exhibition of Aboriginal and Islander photographers at the Aboriginal Artists Gallery, Sydney.

Purchased 2013
© Michael Riley/Copyright Agency, 2024