You are welcome to join the special launch of Looking Glass at the Flinders University Museum of Art on Thursday May 6, when Dr Natalie Harkin will explain the exhibition that brings together acclaimed contemporary Indigenous artists – Judy Watson and Yhonnie Scarce.
Looking Glass is an important and timely exhibition which brings together Waanyi artist, Judy Watson, and Kokatha and Nukunu artist, Yhonnie Scarce. At its heart, the exhibition is both a love song and a lament for Country; a fantastical alchemy of the elemental forces of earth, water, fire and air.
Both personal and painful, the exhibition reveals battles which have been fought by Aboriginal people on many fronts, from colonial massacres and Stolen Generations through to the British atomic bomb tests at Maralinga and the current climate crisis.
Born in Mundubbera, Queensland, Judy Watson derives inspiration from her matrilineal Waanyi heritage, responding to site and memory in works that reveal hidden truths and explore the emotional and physical topography of particular places and moments in time. In a practice that is grounded in drawing and printmaking and often accesses archival material to build and unveil confronting narratives, her works are politically charged yet contemplative and alluring.
Yhonnie Scarce recalls the past in and through her work to uncover histories of Aboriginal people that have been suppressed. Born in Woomera, South Australia, and belonging to the Kokatha and Nukunu peoples, she works predominantly in glass, exploring the political and aesthetic qualities of the material – notably the corresponding crystallisation of desert sand as a result of British nuclear tests in Maralinga, South Australia, that took place 1956-63. The shocking disregard for the safety of local Aboriginal people at the time was symptomatic of the pervasive racism that has characterised much of Australian history since European settlement.
To attend the free launch event, at 5pm on Thursday May 6, please register online via Eventbrite.
The Looking Glass exhibition has been developed by TarraWarra Museum of Art and Ikon Gallery with Curator Hetti Perkins, and it is touring nationally with NETS Victoria.
The exhibition at FUMA will run until 2 July. For more information visit the FUMA website.