06/10/2021
This picture titled 'January 26' won the Clayton Utz Art Award! So humbled! So so grateful! 🙏. And so thrilled.
'January 26'- is from a series titled 'A lingering ache' based on Aboriginal dispossession. The Aboriginal mother and daughter reflect on Australia Day, and the arrival of the first fleet, as a day of celebration or decimation.
My hope is that this artwork, with its deliberately muted tones, arouses in the viewer's mind, a dispassionate, conscience-driven, empathetic internal debate on this significant symbolic issue of our times.
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This picture is so special to me as I got the opportunity to meet this beautiful young Aboriginal lady, Shamaiah and her mum Germaine and got to learn so many incredible and beautiful things about the world's oldest culture.