Laomedia

Mallee country ancient lake beds massacre history for paakantyi, ngyiampaa and mutthi mutthi traditional owners. White and a bit of red creating pink earth.

the most pristine colourful sandunes I have ever seen, I thought the pink ochre would be lovely to paint with.

The resulting decomposition print appears clean as though the body protected the canvas from the elements and dried out rather than melting. I did not brush the canvas down or dye it in eucalyptus, only pulling it through the vinegar bath as the creamy colour of the canvas appealed and there was no smell evident. The drops of sap from the eucalyptus tree provide the reference to place.

Rosellas were my sporting team in the village school I thought when I found the small body of this young bird which I placed on canvas for decomposition.

The following photostream documents the collection, cleaning and dyeing of the 3 rabbit and 3 bird shrouds left to decompose on canvas and linen for 2 months over summer.

Summer in Canberra finally came, and my partner and I set up some new shroud experiments on the property of Tony and Steve. Many thanks to their support and to local hunter Paul for the rabbits.

Painting with natural substances; animal, vegetable and mineral, really is right for me. It makes me feel everything is the way it should be, connected to country. The country I’ve been and becomes a part of me.

The image on the left uses canvas dyed in Gunbalanya with Clara and Juliet Nganjmirra from the root of the manjurndum plant. It was painted using ochres. The image on the left similarly dyed but using the root of the wirdil wirdil grass.

Some cauldron action with the help of my father Tibor and brother-in-law Jason Harding’s skill with a camera. The images demonstrate my attempts to use a non chemical means of neutralizing the bacteria that produces a shroud’s abject smell (which will reduce naturally over an extended period of time).

I have been given the opportunity to present at the minding animals conference in Newcastle on the 18th July. The conference runs from the 13th-18th and is filled with local and international speakers from many disciplines discussing animal/human relations.
Below is my abstract.

Becoming Animal: Investigating painting materials and processes that communicate current animal/human relations in Australia

Deleuze and Guattari’s definitive philosophical essay 1730: Becoming-Intense, Becoming-Animal, Becoming-Imperceptible 1987 examines symbioses between animals and human animals in popular mythologies. Their challenge to Western cultural constructions that view animal as other and becoming animal as a process of contagion is discussed in relation to my current practice-led research into the status of animals in Australian visual culture. My reflections on the human animal and becoming in Australian indigenous cultural traditions focuses on the study of animals in rock art and recent fieldwork in Gunbalanya, Arnhem Land. Comparisons between representations of animals in natural history illustration and indigenous painting in Australia seeks to discover the extent to which materials and creative process used in the production of imagery defines the relationship between the artist and their subject.

The second phase of my latest experiment in developing a shroud process indicate the black plastic and wet autumn weather created a moist environment which disintegrated the body dissipating definition in the body shape. The first male kangaroo shroud had a well defined body print as it was uncovered and made in summer during drought.