Possum Pietà

I completed my Archibald Prize entry today depicting my childhood friend and local Aboriginal elder Theresa Ardler using collected ochre pigments, including the pipeclay gifted to me by the late Laddie Timbery, which I used to paint traditional dots around her eyes. The red is terrestrial, and represents the blood of Ancestral women and Theresa’s experience of blood loss (she has experienced her own death). The gold is visceral and rich like emu fat and expresses the wealth culture holds in the heart, while the black charcoal is cerebral and swirls like nebula or ethereal thoughts. I added a touch of gold oil paint on her gold earring. Initially we had spoken about adding possum pelts leftover from her completed and in-progress budbilli (possum skin cloaks). I used tracing paper to draw shapes and cut some out of the pelt. But when I lay it the soft fur in position, I thought it detracted from the ochre painting. The original shroud was a mother and baby possum from summer 2015, which called to me and Theresa in my studio as she shared her loss of baby Marley Jessie George Ardler. The mother possum stains evoke her cloak and the baby stains eerily become the body of her baby seated on her knee.

Possum Pietà 2024, collected earth pigments, charcoal, gold oil paint, aquarelle, rabbit skin glue, mother and baby possum (summer 2015) on canvas. 98 cm x 115cm.

Doppelganger (Summer Starfish & Leather Jacket 2019) 2023

Saturday the 29th April I applied the last dashes of delek to this sea shroud from a 2019 Worrowing set. The painting can join to the large school of mullet shroud in the marine relics jigsaw. It replaces the leather jacket painting sold to museum director Diana Lorenz in the 2016 joint exhibition with Sally Simpson at the Maritime Museum (Sally also hosted the original marine relic shroud set on her property in Womboin). I allow my shroud sets (exhibited as jigsaws) to interact with each other, communicating over time. I am currently working on marine shrouds from a 2019 shroud set, adding them to the 2016 jigsaw.

Doppelganger (Summer Starfish & Leather Jacket 2019) 2023. Delek, oil, bitumen, silk thread, rabbit skin glue, starfish, and leather jacket on canvas. 44 x 61 cm $536.

Winner Halloran Art Prize – JBMM

Respect This Place (After Uncle Laddie) 2022. Pipe clay, wattle gum, sap, aquarelle and billabong on paper. 37 x 55 cm unframed

The selection of materials for ‘Respect This Place (After Uncle Laddie)’ 2022 communicate my personal response to the Halloran collection (HC). As a local woman growing up in Vincentia, like my mother before me, I have a deep sense of belonging to this place shared with Aboriginal friends and mentors. A significant mentor, Uncle Laddie, gifted me the pipeclay featured in this artwork and his words and handwriting ‘respect this place’ inspired the work and feature on an object in JBMM. This work pays tribute to Laddie’s lifelong work as a cross-cultural teacher and activist based at JBMM.

The paper support was soaked and stained c.10 years ago in the billabong near my childhood home. It is a place frequented by both my mother and her brothers and my siblings and I as children. I feel the presence of my ancestral spirits here. My grandparents, Keith and Gloria Sheehy purchased land from Warren Halloran in c.1955 across from the creek that feeds this billabong. The HC features maps recording Warren’s ownership and sale of the land that created Vincentia village. I chose to represent the instruments of nautical navigation and terrestrial surveying in the HC, as they are symbols of the colonisation and subsequent land sales in Vincentia.

In the Shoalhaven, colonisation began with Alexander Berry pictured in ‘Respect This Place’ using his sextant from the HC. His body merges with the graphometer to become the instrument of colonisation. His words ‘For many years I have reaped my harvest’ also feature in JBMM. Opposing Berry is a stylised representation of an Aboriginal hunter inscribed on a whale tooth from the HC. Cupping the graphometer on the left is a drawing of the breast plate worn by ‘Budd Billy’, who also featured in the JBMM photograph of a local corroboree pictured.

Art Springs for Wildlife & Arts in the Valley

My works Spring Kookaburra Triptych 2020 and Summer Swallow 2015 Hill End 2016 2021 will be exhibited in the Art Springs for Wildlife exhibition at Berry School of Art opening 29th September – 3rd October. My Between Two Worlds (Summer Cuckoo 2019 Cockatoo) 2021 is a finalist in Arts in the Valley art prize opening 30th September – 3rd October.

After 3 years of Covid, I am finally able to exhibit my work in the flesh!

Spring Kookaburra triptych

I have completed a triptych for SeeChange2020 building upon the central shroud created at Worrowing in 2017 (refer to earlier posts). The kookaburra was found deceased at the Worrowing shroud site. Cost is $2400 as a triptych. SOLD

MagpieConstellation

Individual works can be sold separately.

Rising (Spring Kookaburra) 2020 bitumen, oil, gouache, aquarelle, gesso and rabbit skin glue on canvas 80(h) x 45(w) cm $720.

Magpie1

Spring Kookaburra 2017 2020 bitumen, oil, gouache, aquarelle, gesso, kookaburra and rabbit skin glue on canvas 66(h) x 73(w) cm $963.

Magpie2

Falling (Spring Kookaburra) 2020 bitumen, oil, gouache, aquarelle, gesso and rabbit skin glue on canvas 45(h) x 80(w) cm $720.

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NOW Contemporary Art Prize

My work Day and Night is a finalist in the NOW prize.

DayNight

Day and Night (Autumn Cockatoo and Flying Fox) 2011/2019. Cockatoo, flying fox, silk stitch, bitumen, oil, caput mortuum, pipeclay and rabbit skin glue on canvas. 101 x 162 cm. $3272.

Artist Statement

Road boundaries kill animals, like this flying fox and white cockatoo in Canberra 2011. I dissolve the boundary between animal subject and art object by placing decomposing animals on canvas to infest the weave. After documenting their disintegrated remains, I steep the rancid cloth in vinegar and hang it in the elements to cure before stretching onto a wooden frame. I seal the evocative bodily stain or shroud with hot rabbit skin glue and spend weeks, months, or years, in its presence. In 2019, I felt drawn to this shroud and its accompanying photographs of decayed subjects, my two younger children running in a field, their loyal father in his cowboy hat, and two white cockatoos watching from dead trees in the dry Monaro. I apply the bitumen and oil of Europeans to depict the dead creatures, and sacred pipeclay given by a recently deceased Aboriginal mentor negotiates the ground.

Collecting Worrowing Autumn Shroud Set

Darren and I were only able to collect Shroud set 2 on Sunday as I had made the mistake of moving the sets into a shady area of the property. Shroud set 2 was not dried out enough to successfully remove the bodies. I made another mistake attempting to remove the flying fox and ringtail while moist. The imprint was not sufficiently revealed as the body was melted onto the canvas. I decided to leave shroud 2 at Worrowing in the sun to dry out further. I collected it in a few days and it was nicely dried. Vinegar processing went well, the stains nice and strong.