THE National Gallery of Australia yesterday announced an Indigenous Arts Leadership Ambassador program and an International Fellowship to the United States as part of a commitment to professional development in Indigenous arts.

Rachel Maza, actor and director of Ilbijerri Theatre Company and Jonathan Jones, contemporary artist join the program as ambassadors and will work closely with program participants.

“We are very excited to present the Indigenous Arts Leadership Ambassador program. Jonathan Jones and Rachel Maza are leaders in the Arts and we are honoured to have them working with the program. These ambassadors demonstrate the leadership that produces sustainable change for Indigenous Australians” said Simon Elliott, Assistant Director, National Gallery of Australia.

The 2014 program awards three participants with fellowships nationally and internationally for the first time. The International Fellowship at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia has been created from the long standing relationship with the Gallery and Wesfarmers. The Kluge-Ruhe is the only museum in the United States dedicated to the exhibition and study of Australian Aboriginal art and houses one of the largest Aboriginal Art collections in the northern hemisphere.

“We are delighted to be supporting a program that’s creating significant, ongoing professional opportunities for Indigenous Australians in the visual arts, here in Australia, but also now overseas, as the result of a new collaboration with the Kluge-Ruhe Museum” said Helen Carroll Fairhall, Manager of Wesfarmers Arts.

The leadership program at the National Gallery of Australia concluded yesterday.