Atonement

Curated group exhibition at the Bega Regional Gallery, July 2011 

The body of work I created was derived from imagery created in 1807 by Barthelemy Roger. The original images were engravings published in the Atlas,Voyage de decouvertes aux terres Australes. This atlas described the voyages of the French explorers Francis Peron and Nicholas Baudin in Pacific and Australian waters. My paintings transform the original engravings to reflect the uncertainty and wonder felt by many European people as they encountered 'other' peoples for the first time. The blended imagery reflects the common assumption of the 19^thand 20^thcenturies that indigenous people were part of the natural world while Europeans were 'civilized' due to their adoption of technology and supposed separation form Nature. The manner in which I have created fluid boundaries between the figures and plants, patterning, birds and maps is a reflection of the impossibility however of forming such rigid categories to define civilized and primitive, self and 'other'.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Indigene III, 2011, acrylic and oil on linen,  112 x 84 cm (left) and Technocrat - Nicholas Baudin, 2011, acrylic and oil on linen,  112 x 84 cm  (right)

Indigene Imagining

This exhibition explores my ongoing interest in past and present perceptions of the flora fauna and indigenous people ofAustralia. The response of early settlers to the natural world they encountered was determined by their cultural values and tastes. Evidence of these tastes can be found today in the imagery that settlers created. This body of work is derived from various natural history illustrations created in the 18^thand 19^thcenturies. The original sources include Governor Arthur Phillip's First Fleet Journal (1790), engravings by Barthelemy Roger from the Baudin Voyages toAustralia(c. 1824) and Gould's Book of Australian Mammals (c.1845).

 

Governor Phillip's Pacific Parrakeet, 2011, pencil and watercolour on paper, 76 x 56 cm

 

 

Natural Instincts

M16 Artspace October 27-November 13

 

Our sense of self, of our humanity, is informed by our conceptions of the natural world around us. Such conceptions are the products of the thoughts and feelings initiated by encounters with plants, animals and natural elements of the world. These in turn are shaped by memory and perceptions forged from personal and cultural histories. Natural Instincts, was comprised of the work of artists whose practice has explores the complex interaction between humanity and nature. The exhibiting artists fromCanberraand its surrounding hinterland use a range of media and processes to explore nuances within this relationship in their practice. The exhibition aimed to provide a complex, cohesive investigation of the manner in which we define and comprehend ourselves in response to the natural. The exhibiting artists were Julie Bradley, Tiffany Cole, John Pratt, Cherry Hood Patsy Hely Julie Ryder and myself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wedgwood Blue - Trucaninny, 2011 pencil and gouache on paper 76 x 56cm (left), Wedgweood Blue - Joseph Banks, 2011 pencil and gouache on paper 76 x 56cm (right)

 

Wedgwood Blue Series

 

This group of drawings were inspired by a series of jasperware medallions created by Josiah Wedgwood between 1775 and 1780. The medallions featured the white relief portraits of James Cook, Joseph Banks, Daniel Solander, Carolus Linnaeus and Johann Reinhold Forster each mounted on an oval of cobalt blue porcelain. They were made to commemorate the voyages of Cook and the scientific observations and records created during the voyages. The impact of these written and visual records inBritainand Europe was immense, fuelling Imperial expansion and the exoticisation ofAustraliaand the Pacific. My drawings refer to the fact that the wonder initiated by the novel plants, animals and peoples encountered became part of the contextual frame through which Europeans interpreted and interacted with these regions and their indigenous peoples. Within my drawings, plant forms derived from the engravings created from the Endeavour voyage, transform and frame my translation of the portraits of Cook and Banks.

 

The voyages of exploration also were integral to the process of colonisation and White settlement ofAustralia. The historical record of these events is predominantly constructed from the viewpoint of the coloniser, marked by a dearth of Indigenous narratives. The drawingsWedgwood Blue TrucaninnyandWedgwood Blue Woureddy,derived from the plaster busts produced by Benjamin Law (1835-36), refer to this absence. In these drawings the usual structure of the blue and white Jasperware is reversed. InsteadTasmania’s last Aborigines are represented as featureless silhouettes encased in a framework of European stylised floral patterning. This body of drawings remind the viewer of the labile and contested nature of Australian history.

 

 

Empire Eyes

 Beatty Gallery at Mary Place, Sydney, October 2010.

Historical prints and paintings of Australia's unique flora and fauna inspired this body of paintings and drawings. The sources of the images include John Gould'sBook of Australian Mammals(c. 1845), illustrations by Jean Charles Werner, an artist aboard Dumont D'Urville's third voyage of the Pacific in 1837 and those of George Raper, a midshipman within the First Fleet. 

The selected images were fused with European decorative patterning to reflect my imagining of how many colonialists may have perceived this continent and its inhabitants. The 'eyes' through which settlers viewed and responded to their novel surroundings were tempered by the tastes and values they possessed. Ideals of beauty and civilisation were displayed in the highly decorated interiors of the period. The use of decorative motifs and patterns in the works was an allusion to the high value placed on ornamentation and the accompanying compulsion to adorn what was thought to be 'owned'.

 

Colonial Adnornment, 2010, acrylic and oil on canvas, 90 x 75 cm

 

2006-2010 PhD research Project

The title of my PhD research project was Wonderlust: the influence of natural history illustration and ornamentation on perceptions of the exotic in Australia. The project was comprised of two components. 

The studio research developed a painting process to examine representations and perceptions of the Australian exotic 'other'.  The 'other' was the flora, fauna and indigenous people of this land.  Illustrations and ornamental imagery of the 18^th and 19^th centuries were quoted and transformed. The recombined imagery was comprised of multiple transparent and opaque layers that provided a metaphoric model of how the concept of the Australian self is defined in opposition to the 'other'.  The paintings created offered the viewer the opportunity to examine and experience the aesthetic perception of the exotic.  

The results of the studio research were presented as an exhibition of paintings at the School of Art Gallery, ANU in March 2010.  Some installation views of this exhbition are in the image gallery page.  Below is a detail of Nouvelle Femme.

 

Installation views of Wonderlust 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The theoretical research consisted of a Dissertation that examined the historical and cultural context of the production of natural history illustration and ornamentation. The formal qualities of these visual forms that enabled them to inform and disseminate exotic constructions and perceptions were investigated.  The significance of these forms of imagery in Australia from the late 18^th to early 20^th centuries was the focus of the research. 

The dissertation has now been published as an e-thesis and can be found at

http://hdl.handle.net/1885/7160