Indigenous art

Shared histories through art: a path to reconciliation

tanya.sticca@artgallery.wa.gov.au — Thu, 03 Jun 2021 03:30:05 +0000

Shared histories through art: a path to reconciliation

Sandra Hill Home-maker #5: The Bedroom 2021 (detail). Oil on linen, 76 x 91 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through the Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation: TomorrowFund, 2020. © Sandra Hill 2020 / Licenced by the Copyright Agency Ltd.

tanya.sticca@a… Thu 03/06/2021 - 11:30am

2 June 2021

Award-winning artist, Sandra Hill’s work is renowned for its powerful narratives and haunting visuals influenced by childhood experiences as a survivor of the Stolen Generation.

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My Mum and Dad | Doreen Hill nee Calgaret and Herbert Hill.

In 1958, while her father undertook compulsory army training in the Eastern States, Hill, her two sisters and brother, who were living in Port Sampson at the time, were taken from their mother and placed into an orphanage. Hill was only six years old at the time, and it would be 27 years before Hill, and her siblings were reunited with her parents.

Art has always been part of Hill’s life. It was a means to find solitude, comfort and a way to express her sense of grief and loss from her early years. Later, it would be her voice telling the stories that needed to be heard.

Some of Hill’s most compelling work to date is currently on display in the Balancing Act exhibition. Her three paintings from her Homemaker series are what you encounter as you first enter the gallery. Like most of her work, it’s heart-rending as it tells the story of her beloved mother, grandmother, her siblings and herself.

For Reconciliation Week, we sat down with Sandra Hill to discuss her series, her artistic practice and thoughts on reconciliation in Australia and whether galleries and museums such as AGWA are doing enough or whether more action should be taken.

Balancing Act installation view, AGWA 2021 | (L-R) Sandra Hill Home-maker #5: The Bedroom 2012; Homemaker #10: Honey, I'm Home 2020; Home-maker #9: The Hairdresser 2014. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through the Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation: TomorrowFund, 2020. © Sandra Hill 2012; 2020; 2014 / Licenced by the Copyright Agency Ltd.

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What influences your artistic practice? What inspired you to become an artist?

My lifetime experience has been the major influence on my art practice. When I was in the orphanage I saw a painting of an angel and when I was fostered out to the white family I was given coloured pencils and paper and paints. This motivated me to draw or try to reproduce that angel that I found to be the only source of comfort during my three and a half years in Sister Kate’s Children’s Home for half caste kids.

Standing | My sister Barbara is 3rd from the left and I’m 5th standing next to her holding hands. Bottom Row | My baby brother Darryl is on the left.

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Your Homemaker series carries a very personal and powerful message. Tell us a bit more about the works that make up this series and, in particular, the ones that are currently on display in Balancing Act.

In the 1950s, low budget housing was made available to ‘chosen’ Aboriginal families through the “Transitional Housing Scheme”. In short, families accepted into the homes, whether they knew it or not, were subjected to an unfathomable amount of government rules and regulations. Under the strict control of the Native Welfare Department, social, domestic and civil ‘re-education’ was filtered down through various agencies. These ‘settlements’ were nothing more than an experiment in assimilation.

There was a clear expectation that the ‘black’ woman can just slot into this scene with relative ease in white society. Dress her accordingly, teach her appropriate social etiquette, familiarise her with ‘joys’ of white domestication and all will ‘look’ well. This was not the case and the entire programme was considered a failure by the government.

Sandra Hill

Artist

My works revisit this era of intense assimilation and attempt to convey the alienation level that my people experienced during that period. Coming straight out of the catastrophic 1905 Aborigines Act, we were square pegs being forced into round holes via the ridiculous notion that we could, without hesitation, put aside 50,000 years of cultural knowledge and training to participate in an alien society. My work is an avenue to ‘speak’ of and share the intolerable and heartbreaking experiences inflicted upon thousands of indigenous women, including my beloved mother, grandmother, siblings, and myself.

In my piece Honey, I’m Home, the young woman wears a traditional Kangaroo-skin Booka (cloak). The Booka is symbolic of cultural defiance; it represents her stance in preserving and maintaining her Cultural identity as it once was. Even though her outward appearance may appear to be one of surrender, she shows her defiance by protecting herself from being among the white people by covering herself in her culture. It is a direct challenge to the notion of passivity.

As she stands at the stove in this homely but ‘alien’ space, she looks directly at the viewer. She was one of many young women targeted for assimilation by the Native Welfare Department and abducted as a very young child from her family and her community. As she goes through the motions of preparing the evening meal, her ‘husband’ greets her from behind the kitchen door. Her children greet their father and look for treats in his briefcase as he makes his presence known to her.

The husband is painted in black, white and grey. This is my way of transferring back onto white society the one-dimensional perception afforded to Aboriginal people since first contact, it also makes reference to the caste system that was imposed onto our identities.

Sandra Hill Homemaker #10: Honey, I'm Home 2020. Oil on linen, 91 x 76 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through the Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation: TomorrowFund, 2020. © Sandra Hill 2020 / Licenced by the Copyright Agency Ltd.

What do you hope audiences will take away with them when they view your works?

I hope they go away with a better understanding of the collective grief and sense of alienation that those who were stolen have experienced over their lifetimes. The loss of personal and cultural identity has been something that my siblings and I have had to deal with throughout our lives. Having to navigate finding family, kinship ties and country, then seeking out and being accepted back into our communities and family groups where we belong has been the most difficult journey.

Me in front of my baby sister Trish ‘holidaying’ with a white family around 1957-58 when we were still in Sister Kate’s Children’s Home for Half-Caste Children. When this photo was taken we were so tiny and so young and so malnourished from starving in the home.

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There are many dark chapters within Australia’s history for example colonisation, Stolen Generation, discrimination which are still all relevant today. Do you feel Australia is on the right path to reconciliation, if not what actions should take place?

If Australia goes down the path of Voice, Treaty, Truth now, there might be some hope for the future. If there is no drastic change, led by the Government in the near future, there is not a lot of hope for our people or our culture. The reality is that our elders are statistically dying 15 years before our white brothers and sisters. This means that our culture and Heritage won’t be able to be handed down to our grandchildren and the generations following.

Do you feel galleries and museums such as AGWA are doing enough in telling the stories/histories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders? What do you believe galleries and cultural institutions should be doing/looking at more to help with the path to reconciliation?

They need to be committing to:

Equity – We are all Australians, our desire is to be treated as such and be afforded the same opportunities and respect that our non Indigenous Australians enjoy.

Truth-telling – Indigenous art should not be ‘put aside’ due to being ‘too political or too radical or too confronting’, we have a very political and confronting history that needs to be told in this country.

Aboriginal cultural protocols – They need to be better understood and should always take priority when Aboriginal artists are working with Galleries and Museums.

Artist focussed processes – Make processes more streamlined, less complicated and easier for ‘grass roots’ Aboriginal artists in the community to connect to the mainstream arts via the Galleries and Museums.

Developing a better understanding of what cultural safety means and what that requires when working with both artists and curators.

Galleries and museums must have Indigenous curators managing Indigenous collections and exhibitions that are showing Indigenous works, it’s crucial to all of us that Curators understand the Cultural Protocols that are behind what we all do.

Me and my younger sister Trish on the right.

Sandra Hill

Balancing Act

Indigenous art

Western Australian art

State Art Collection

Sandra Hill

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Artist Q&A with Sandra Hill

First Nation artist Julie Dowling

tanya.sticca@artgallery.wa.gov.au — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 03:24:24 +0000

First Nation artist Julie Dowling

Artist Julie Dowling at her WA Now Babanyu – Friends for life opening at AGWA. Photo by Daniel James Grant.

tanya.sticca@a… Fri 10/07/2020 - 11:24am

13 February 2018

First Nation artist Julie Dowling is an activist, a visionary and an artist. Earlier this week we spoke to Julie about her current exhibition Babanyu – Friends for life showing at the Gallery as part of WA Now and what influences her work.

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From the paintings shown in the exhibition, is there one in particular that resonates most with you and if so why?

I think at the moment it’s the portrait of my mother Ronnie Dowling: The neurotic. I remember the many stories she told me as I was painting it.

My mother was an artist but was stopped from pursuing a life as one because her family relied on her for financial support. She became a domestic servant from the age of 11 and finished schooling at 14. When my twin sister and I were born, she began her art again but kept it hidden from the world.

My mother is my friend and teacher. She was and still is very influential in the discipline side of my art making. She taught me how to see art as an extension of my own freedom, of it being part of myself and to talk about everything that surrounds me to the world. My Mum taught me to have a social conscience and eye for justice in all things.

Tell us about the Badimaya culture and how this influences your work?

Badimaya culture was always expressed in clandestine ways before the mid-1980s however it was following this period that my family and I began to openly express who we were and what we felt about our culture. The Badimaya culture was kept hidden however I was able to learn many things from my grandmother. I learned how to look after the land, its creatures and about how we are all connected to the land. I also learned a smattering of the Badimaya language from my Grandmother. She did not speak it often because she was taught that the language wasn’t legal to speak when she was growing up and feared we would be taken away if we spoke it in public also.

Since the 1980’s I’ve been involved with cultural renewal in my family and within many communities. Culture is an act of empowerment as much as it is a language of being.

Badimaya culture is also land specific as it relates to a place and an environment and without those two/three things acting in unison…language/place/cultural practice then it’s very difficult to see into the universe of knowledge & understanding that still exists here. Our country is north of Dalwalinu to the south, Mt. Gibson to the west, the eastern area of Lake Moore and the land north of Mt. Magnet

Julie Dowling Is it ok to be two things at once 1996. Synthetic polymer paint, red ochre and blood on canvas, 104 x 65 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased 1996. © Julie Dowling / Copyright Agency.

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What do you hope people will take away from your exhibition and from the stories conveyed through your work?

I hope they see the paintings in terms of documenting a journey or me tracking through everything as a woman, a Badimaya cultural being, someone who is interested in cultural history, decolonisation, First Nation empowerment, ending racism, ending sexism, living my life as a twin and also as a fair-skinned First Nation person. There are many multi-layered contextual meanings in the work and each plays out more in some than in others.

Julie Dowling

Artist

The main objective at present is to end racism. Everything from the cognitive dissonance and white fragility that many white people feel about First Nation people to those that don’t know about how systemic racism can rob First Nation people of many things from land, language to identity. Racism impacts every human being in some way.

What are you working on these days and can you tell us a little bit about it?

I’m working on a great number of miniatures for an exhibition at Midland Junction that is about language and the land. I’ve been contributing to a science called ethnobotany which looks into (with First Nation scientists) how language and the understanding of plants/landscape/environment are all linked. Without an intrinsic interaction with the environment, ethnobotanists have found that humans get depression and a great number of mental disorders over generations.

These miniatures will be mapping the process of moving away from language and land and also the returning to it in the form of de-colonisation and using cultural renewal of my own Badimaya language. I hope it helps people to heal.

Julie Dowling’s free exhibition is showing at the Art Gallery of Western Australia until the 13 August 2018.

Visit Julie Dowling’s official webpage.

Julie Dowling

WA Now

Babanyu – Friends for life

Indigenous art

Western Australian

AGWA

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First Nation artist Julie Dowling is an activist, a visionary and an artist. Earlier this week we spoke to Julie about her current exhibition Babanyu – Friends for life showing at AGWA.

Fair Trade in Aboriginal Art

tanya.sticca@artgallery.wa.gov.au — Tue, 07 Jul 2020 04:20:45 +0000

Fair Trade in Aboriginal Art

Artworks by artists from Kira Kiro Art Centre. Courtesy of the artist.

tanya.sticca@a… Tue 07/07/2020 - 12:20pm

14 March 2019

Of the several million tourists who visit Australia each year, many will leave with what they assume is an authentic souvenir of Aboriginal Australian culture, whether a simple fridge magnet or T-shirt; or hand-crafted didgeridoos and painted boomerangs. Yet in many cases, what they ultimately take home with them is more likely to be an artefact that has been mass produced in China or Indonesia which currently supply up to 80% of so-called Aboriginal art products vended in Australia.

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It goes without saying that the enterprise has a far-reaching impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and craftspeople, co-opting a highly profitable market that should be theirs to lead and misappropriating cultural and intellectual property.

In economic terms, it is difficult to compete with these counterfeit articles, manufactured from inferior, non-traditional materials and sold at bargain prices. Many of the products bear only a passing resemblance to authentic works and patently misrepresent First Nations cultures, leaving consumers with little to gain from the trade either.

The proliferation of fake art can in part be explained by the fact that this apparently multi-million-dollar market is still free to operate without breaching Australian consumer law. Recent attempts to establish legislation which would protect the cultural and intellectual property of Aboriginal people have gained some traction, but as of 2019 have not reached a conclusion.

In the meantime, certain other frameworks have been established which, whilst not legally defensible, have introduced a greater degree of regulation and transparency to the Indigenous visual arts sector. For example the Indigenous Art Code, developed with a number of national agencies, artists, art centres and galleries in 2010, lays out a code of conduct for artists and dealers operating in the sector. Entered into on a voluntary basis, the Code nonetheless provides consumers and retailers with clear information about products’ origin and licensing. Consumers are encouraged to look for the Indigenous Art Code’s logo, which indicates that standards of fair and ethical trade have been adhered to throughout production. The Art Gallery of Western Australia shop is one retailer that stocks a high number of Aboriginal Art products and as a member of the Code, ensures all stock is ethically sourced.

Using the Desert River Sea: Portraits of the Kimberley exhibition as an example, here we have sourced our Aboriginal products on the participating art centres and artists to provide their artworks.

Ida Sorgiovanni

AGWA Shop Manager

Ethically sourced products from the AGWA Shop.

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In the absence of comprehensive legal changes that would prevent the trade of inauthentic and unlicensed products, growing awareness of the realities of Indigenous art trade have at least allowed many consumers to make more informed choices. As this gradually reaches wider audiences, there is hope that the artists and craftspeople at the heart of this rich visual culture can finally get a better deal for their work.

Things to ask a retailer when buying:

Who is the artist?
Where are they from?
In the case of original (not licensed merchandise product) how do you get the work, do you buy it outright or is it consigned to your gallery? Is this the first time the work has been sold?
In the case of merchandise or licensed product (not one off original works) is there a licensing agreement with the artist?
How does the artist get paid, what percentage of the total sales price does the artist receive?
Any ethical business that values and respects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture will be able to provide you with this information regardless of the monetary value of the work. Insist on it.

Desert River Sea: Portraits of the Kimberley

Desert River Sea project

Indigenous Art Code

AGWA Shop

Indigenous art

Torres Strait Islander art

AGWA

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Of the several million tourists who visit Australia each year, many will leave with what they assume is an authentic souvenir of Aboriginal Australian culture.

Wirnan

tanya.sticca@artgallery.wa.gov.au — Tue, 07 Jul 2020 03:58:24 +0000

Wirnan

Waringarri Aboriginal Arts Wirnan (detail). Desert River Sea AGWA installation view, 2019. Photo by Rebecca Mansell.

tanya.sticca@a… Tue 07/07/2020 - 11:58am

30 April 2019

As a group from Waringarri Aboriginal Arts in the East Kimberley, we are proud to present our Wirnan Project as part of the Desert River Sea: Portraits of the Kimberley exhibition.

“Wirnan” is a traditional Miriwoong word that describes the trade and exchange of gifts from one tribe to another. The trade of Wirnan is a way of keeping each of us connected through sharing and most importantly giving each other ideas and making artefacts. Collecting is connecting to our Country to know who we are and our children and how we used to communicate and talk and understand each other’s ways. To respect and understand our Country.

When we began this project, we had the privilege and permission to listen to one of our leaders (who has now passed) talking in Miriwoong language. She spoke about how the four Indigenous tribes came together to a special place, to trade their gifts at Argument Gap.

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Jan Griffiths

It took us a while to brainstorm and to draw what Wirnan meant to us. When our map of drawings was finished, we hung it up, sat back and looked at it. We saw that we had drawn similar pictures to express Wirnan of the old and the now. So, we decided to make four coolamons as it was the main artefact used for carrying all sorts of things. Two coolamons, made traditionally from wood and paperbark, to acknowledge our ancestors from the past that walked from different directions to trade their gifts such as spears, boomerangs, spearheads, dances, songs, corroboree, ochre and traditional marriages. And two more coolamons, made with steel and ceramic, to represent our present day with similar trades, but with gifts such as food, blankets, material and money. We laid out many rocks separated in four different colours to represent the tribal boundaries. One of our highlights was going out on Country to collect what we needed for our project, to make it bigger and better, more special and meaningful.

Our Wirnan project needed more to be done, so we added a projector to show video clips and photos old and new of our people and culture. We included artefacts that we’d made with wood and ceramic at our art centre and a fire to represent the traditional dance that took place to celebrate the coming together of the tribes.

Making the Wirnan project was a big challenge for our group, but in the end, we did it. There was heartache and emotions for the dedication of two of our leaders who had recently passed away and our inspiring group who had poured our hearts and soul into this project. We can now stand proud and say that we have accomplished our Wirnan project as one strong cultural group, reminding us of how our tribal groups came together as one big family those many, many years ago.

Thank you to everyone that has made the journey, travelling near, far and wide to the Art Gallery of WA on Noongar Country as one, to share our legacies, to exchange our stories and art in different mediums. Our Wirnan project is all about this, sharing, giving and exchanging.

Desert River Sea: Portraits of the Kimberley is showing at AGWA until 27 May 2019.

Desert River Sea: Portraits of the Kimberley

Waringarri Aboriginal Arts

Wirnan Project

Indigenous art

Kimberley art

Jan Goongaja Griffiths, Artist, Waringarri Aboriginal Arts

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As a group from Waringarri Aboriginal Arts in the East Kimberley, we are proud to present our Wirnan Project as part of the Desert River Sea: Portraits of the Kimberley exhibition.

Unmasking the hidden history of colonial Western Australia

tanya.sticca@artgallery.wa.gov.au — Mon, 06 Jul 2020 05:48:09 +0000

Unmasking the hidden history of colonial Western Australia

Christopher Pease b. 1969, Minang/Nyoongar Reaper 2015 (detail). Oil on muslin on board (42 panels), 168 x 294 cm. Courtesy the artist and Gallerysmith, Melbourne.

tanya.sticca@a… Mon 06/07/2020 - 1:48pm

7 January 2020

From an early age Western Australian artist, Christopher Pease displayed a talent for the arts. His mother Sandra Hill and brother Ben Pushman are also well-known Noongar artists with works included in many significant collections including AGWA, Janet Holmes à Court Collection, Kerry Stokes Collection and the National Gallery of Australia.

Trained as a graphic designer, Pease dabbled in art throughout his studies and later while working in hospitality. It wasn’t until 1999 that he produced his first serious painting titled Noongar Dreaming. This painting depicts Australian Rules football great Graham “Polly” Farmer’s nephew Peter Farmer standing on the Perth freeway which bears Polly’s name.

Another significant piece of artwork by Christopher Pease titled Reaper is currently on display in AGWA’s WA Journey Gallery as part of the Foundation’s annual appeal. Made up of 42 panels, this impressive artwork relays an important message about colonial Western Australia and its darker history.

AGWA’s Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, Carly Lane hosted a live Q+A with Christopher about his work.

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Artist Christopher Pease with AGWA’s Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Carly Lane.

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Carly Lane: So, Reaper; what is it about? In twenty-five words or less.

Christopher Pease: In twenty – I don’t know if I can do that. When you’re an artist you find yourself looking back a lot. When you’re a Noongar artist, you’re always looking back. The first references came from my family; my mum, my aunties who would tell stories. After that, you look at the artwork that maybe other people don’t. Like Revel Cooper, I love his work. Then I was going into the museum archives, looking at artefacts and for Noongar iconography specifically, to find a Noongar visual aesthetic. I was trying to build my own visual language and then I stumbled across the Louis de Sainson prints.

Carly Lane: Who is Louis de Sainson?

Christopher Pease: He was a French watercolourist and draughtsman on the ship Astrolabe which sailed down to Albany in 1827 for a couple of months, and he did some really interesting stuff. There was a lot of early colonial artists that did work that I kind of was interested in because there was no photography and there is this translation that occurs. So, the drawings are made here, and then they go back to London where they’re turned into an aquatint, an etching – a lithograph and so there are sometimes weird things that happen in the translation. You don’t know exactly what’s real, and what’s accurate and what’s not accurate, so I’ve seen a lot of kind of questionable things. Robert Dale’s piece was the big one.

Carly Lane: Who is Robert Dale?

Christopher Pease: Robert Dale was a British Lieutenant who in 1829 arrived at the Derbarl Yerrigan (the Swan River) on the HMS Sulphur, and he ended up being the assistant surveyor to John Septimus Roe. He did a lot of surveying and was involved in projects all throughout Perth.

Carly Lane: He was about 19.

Christopher Pease: Yes.

Carly Lane: But had already built up this skillset.

Christopher Pease: Yeah, his skills were amazing. In 1832 he was in Albany, from January to May and during this time he wrote the account of King George’s Sound and did a series of sketches on top of this hill looking south overlooking King George’s Sound, and that was a panorama. The original panorama is three metres long, it’s a really beautiful lithograph – coloured lithograph – and I wanted to tackle that for years, like really early on, but I just didn’t feel confident in doing it. Finally, a couple of years ago, maybe four years ago now, I thought “That’s it, I’m going to tackle this work.”

Carly Lane: I feel like there’s a bit of déjà vu, because I do want to tell the audiences that we recently had the panorama that Robert Dale drew, and Robert Havell printed up in the Botanical: Beauty and Peril exhibition, and there was another work by artist Sohan Ariel Hayes that was a response to that print that was in the show as well.

Christopher Pease: Yeah. So, Robert Dale, at the same time that he was down in Albany, so was Yagan. Yagan was a cultural warrior here in Whadjuk territory and at the same time, the grants were being opened up in Perth. You’ve got private land ownership happening on the Derbarl Yerrigan, on the Swan River. There was an odd series of events that led to Yagan killing William Gaze. Yagan was caught and sentenced to death, but an outspoken settler named Robert Lyon convinced the judge to send him to Carnac Island instead. He ended up going to Carnac Island and then he escaped by boat back to the mainland. He later appeared at Lake Monger, doing Gidjee (spear) demonstrations, throwing, dancing, and also, in the Perth Botanical Gardens he was involved in events as well, so he was kind of given this kind of unspoken pardon, I guess.

Carly Lane: Julie Dowling, her painting titled Yagan 2016, talks about that event or, you know, it depicts the event at Lake Monger where he was throwing spears.

Christopher Pease: Yeah, yeah, they – they were, you know, throwing targets. You know and there’s a big article in the Perth Gazette where they remarked how amazing he was – Yagan was – his prowess in throwing, you know, weapons.

Christopher Pease b. 1969, Minang/Nyoongar Reaper 2015 (detail). Oil on muslin on board (42 panels), 168 x 294 cm. Courtesy the artist and Gallerysmith, Melbourne.

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Carly Lane: From what I understand about your most recent exhibition Minang Boodjar, it was a series of six paintings that all looked at King George Sound, and the Dale and Havell Panorama.

Christopher Pease: Reaper recreates the first part of the panorama and there’s a lot of interesting things happening in it. And there’s a lot of the things Robert Dale depicts in the panorama that is quite accurate. In the background, so you can see in the top right prescribed burning that was happening, so yeah there was a lot of prescribed burning. We can see in other parts – in the painting – there was possum hunting. So, some of the things that he was depicting were quite accurate. What happened was in 1833, Yagan was caught trespassing up where I used to live up in Swan Valley near Ellenbrook. He was caught trespassing and he was shot by two brothers, beheaded, and his head was put in a tree and smoked. Robert Dale ended up acquiring the head and in 1834 he went back to London where he looked to make a deal for Yagan’s head. It was during this time he met Thomas Pettigrew, who was a surgeon working in London. He was an antiquarian and he made a deal with Robert Dale for Yagan’s head. Pettigrew would host dinner parties in his home and after dinner, he would display his curiosities to his guests and Yagan’s head was part of that. As a souvenir, each guest was also given a print of Robert Dale’s panorama.

Apart from the back story, there’s obviously the lines in the painting that’s actually the real map of the exact area where the drawings took place and that relates back to Robert’s Dales work as a cartographer and surveyor. I decided to divide it up to represent the cutting up the land and putting up boundaries. The reaper is the reference to death and if you look at tarot cards it also means change which is quite significant for that period as well. It was a fitting image that works well with what was happening at the time.

Reaper is currently on loan and we are asking for your help to give it a permanent home in the State Collection. Find out here

Donate by contacting our Foundation office on +61 8 9492 6761 or email foundation@artgallery.wa.gov.au

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AGWA

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Lesley Murray’s ‘Black Soldier’

tanya.sticca@artgallery.wa.gov.au — Fri, 26 Jun 2020 02:28:32 +0000

Lesley Murray’s ‘Black Soldier’

Lesley Murray Black soldier 1994 (detail). Linocut, 55 x 105 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased 2001.

tanya.sticca@a… Fri 26/06/2020 - 10:28am

7 April 2020

Lesley Murray Black soldier 1994. Linocut, 55 x 105 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased 2001.

Lesley Murray’s Black Soldier is a commemorative work which has both personal and public resonance. A heartfelt tribute to the artist’s grandfather, the work has also assumed broader significance as a symbol of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ role in the Australian Defence Force, as well as in the early frontier wars.

Presenting the archetypal image of the Australian Digger in full uniform and slouch hat, the words ‘Black Soldier’ underscore how Indigenous military service has been marked by patterns of anonymity and under-recognition.

While Indigenous servicemen often experienced a sense of equality and camaraderie among the troops at war, they did not receive the same recognition and support as their counterparts upon their return.

Alice Springs, December 1942. (Source: Australian War Memorial).

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As Leslie Murray noted when exhibiting the work in 2001, it was in recent decades that “the RSL and the Australian Government came to recognise the efforts and sacrifices made by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.”

Indigenous servicemen’s names were excluded from Australian War Memorials and unlike non-Aboriginal veterans, they were not given land once back in Australia. Murray’s own grandfather, promoted to Lance Corporal during the Second World War, only received his medal in 1989.

Black Soldier forms part of a series of linocut prints celebrating the life of her grandfather William Murray. While the works hold great personal meaning for Murray, having helped her grieve his death in 1994, she also intended to make a broader statement about Aboriginal experience and their role in defending Australia over the years.

Special platoon consisting of volunteer Aboriginal soldiers, Number 9 camp at Wangaratta, December 1940. (Source: Australian War Memorial).

Many fought and lost their lives fighting in alien lands, for not only their country, but in the hope of making their situation in Australia better for their families.

Lesley Murray

Artist

Hear more about Lesley Murray’s ‘Grandfather series’ in this AGWA TV interview:

AGWA

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Lesley Murray’s Black Soldier is a commemorative work which has both personal and public resonance.

Remembering Indigenous Military Service on ANZAC Day

AGWA Six Seasons

tanya.sticca@artgallery.wa.gov.au — Tue, 16 Jun 2020 08:02:43 +0000

AGWA Six Seasons

Norma MacDonald Spirit drawn 2008 (detail). Oil on Belgian linen, 80 x 120 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through the Sir Claude Hotchin Art Foundation, Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation, 2008. © Norma MacDonald, 2008.

tanya.sticca@a… Tue 16/06/2020 - 4:02pm

12 June 2020

Kedela wer kalyakoorl ngalak Wadjak boodjak yaak.

Today and always, we stand on the traditional land of the Whadjuk Noongar people.

The current Six Seasons exhibition Outside: Matters of the heart in Indigenous art explores among a number of subjects the history and experiences of being an outsider in white Australian society. Curated by Carly Lane, AGWA Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, it represents a space for multiple voices and shared narratives, where contested histories are confronted and cultural stories celebrated. At a time when the injustices of racism and inequality are magnified, this exhibition signals our commitment to ensure that all voices and stories are heard, and to stand up against racism in any form. As AGWA Director Colin Walker affirms, “we stand in solidarity with those fighting to end systemic racism and the violence that racism inflicts on the Black community.”

Below is a selection of works from the exhibition Outside: Matters of the heart in Indigenous art.

Vernon Ah Kee therewasafall 2015. Synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen, 180 x 240 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased 2016. © Vernon Ah Kee, 2015.

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The words in therewasafall are taken from the Queensland Coroner’s report into the death of Cameron Doomadgee, who died in police custody on Palm Island in 2004. Doomadgee died one hour after being arrested for causing a public nuisance. On its release, the report was read out by the then-mayor of Palm Island to the local Aboriginal residents who gathered in the town square. Upon learning of these horrific injuries, Lex Wotton and others expressed their grief and anger. The police station, courthouse and home of the officer-in-charge were set on fire. Lex Wotton was convicted for inciting a riot and sentenced to seven years in prison. Sergeant Chris Hurley, the police officer charged with Doomadgee’s death, was found not guilty of manslaughter.

Sandra Hill Dear Mr Neville 1996. Solvent transfer print, watercolour, mixed media on paper, 79.1 x 93.5 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased 1997.

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My work is a way of reclaiming my heritage, of telling my story and that of other Aboriginal people… At six years old I was taken from my family and fostered by a white family. Twenty-nine years later, I was reunited with my mother and father. The years I spent researching my family history, policies and legislation and my Aboriginal heritage have resulted in the artworks I create. The imagery relates to different elements of life as an Aboriginal person. It tells stories about identity, spirituality, shared grief, struggle and the profound sense of loss that has been experienced by many of my people.

Sandra Hill

1997

“At Mogumber Mission the authorities separate the babies and children from their parents. Birthdays were seldom celebrated within the many missions and orphanages in Western Australia for First Nations children. I painted this picture to represent the possibility of a young child being given bread and butter pudding (at the very least) on her birthday. I imagined that she could have two of her friends with her to celebrate. The sad thing is that this story is true. Such a story was told by my Great Aunt Dorothy Nannup to my Nana. Birthdays are creations of another culture anyway. In our culture, a child is celebrated every day of its young life. They are never hit or spoken harshly to. They are surrounded by family and learn from older children and elders until they reach maturity. It is then that a ceremony marks the move from childhood to adulthood. It provides a clear transition. We also believe that elders and children are closer to the Dreaming.”

Julie Dowling
2018

Julie Dowling Birthday girl 1996. Synthetic polymer paint, red ochre and blood on canvas, 91.5 x 61 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased 1996. © Julie Dowling / Copyright Agency.

Michael Riley Sacrifice 1992. Silver gelatin print, 30.5 x 40.5 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through the Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation: TomorrowFund, 2013. © Michael Riley, 1992.

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The Sacrifice series, really what I was exploring there was how Aboriginal people were put on to reserves and missions like in the 1940s and earlier and regimented and told not to speak language, not to act as culture and you would have different tribal groups thrown in together. Some of the images in Sacrifice, like with the spoons, that’s symbolic of addiction, like heroin addiction. The row of sardine, the fish, it’s like how on reserves people were lined up and regimented and everyone have their place and everything.

Michael Riley

2008

Dianne Jones The Great Heads 2017. Ink jet print on paper, 53 x 80 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through The Leah Jane Cohen Bequest, Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation, 2018. © Dianne Jones / Copyright Agency.

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"As a Noongar artist invited to spend time in Parliament House I was taken on tours of the building, its many rooms, halls and artworks. I learnt about the many symbols and traditions that evoke how a culture creates a sense of grandeur befitting the gravitas of ‘founding a nation’ the historical ties with Britain, the solemn rituals required for power to make laws impacting us, every day. The height, the arches, the statues and the leather-bound books are crafted to induce awe, to speak of some divine right to possess and govern. I am not a tourist here on Noongar land.”

Dianne Jones
2017

Norma MacDonald Spirit drawn 2008. Oil on Belgian linen, 80 x 120 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through the Sir Claude Hotchin Art Foundation, Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation, 2008. © Norma MacDonald, 2008.

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Four young boys at Carrolup Mission stand proudly with their landscape drawings of their traditional land in the Great Southern. Noongar / Yamitji artist Norma MacDonald merges and expands the landscapes depicted in each of the scrapbooks into the foreground of the painting, and perhaps more importantly, across the bodies of the four boys holding their art. Such a union speaks to the relationship and understanding each child has to their land – their boodja. The painting is a contemporary reflection upon an important time in Western Australian history and captures the origins of the Carrolup landscape tradition – founded by Noongar children, and its resurgence among contemporary Noongar artists today.

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Outside: Matters of the heart in Indigenous art is currently on display in our Six Seasons gallery. Read more about this exhibition and access our online collection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art at artgallery.wa.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/six-seasons

AGWA

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At a time when the injustices of racism and inequality are magnified, this exhibition signals our commitment to ensure that all voices and stories are heard, and to stand up against racism in any form.

Confronting Contested Histories

Indigenous art

Shared histories through art: a path to reconciliation

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First Nation artist Julie Dowling

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Fair Trade in Aboriginal Art

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Wirnan

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Unmasking the hidden history of colonial Western Australia

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Lesley Murray’s ‘Black Soldier’

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AGWA Six Seasons

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