Displaced. The starting point for this work was the figure of Captain Cook in E Phillips Fox’s painting ‘Landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay, 1770’.
I saw this painting at the National Gallery of Victoria a few years ago, and some things really stuck with me;
the heroic central figure of Cook,
the way the Aboriginal people in the painting are pushed off to one side,
and the symbol of the planting a flag to show ownership.
My painting takes some of these things and switches them around – I call it displaced for a number of reasons –
the main one is for the way that countless Aboriginal people have been displaced in so many ways from Cook’s arrival onwards.
I experienced this displacement myself, when Australian government departments placed me in the foster system and moved me from my home in Central Australia to Perth –
I was separated from family, Country and culture. So, I have decided to displace Cook himself, transporting him from his arrival at Kamay (Botany Bay) to Central Australia, to the type of landscape that my great-grandfather was famous for painting.
Queen Elizabeth is there too, as another symbol of colonisation and its impacts.
So, Cook and the Queen are both displaced and totally out of their comfort zone in my Central Australian landscape – they’re turning pink in the heat and their power and status doesn’t mean much here.
My self-portrait with the Aboriginal flag and the protector totem of the dingo sends a strong message:
“This is Aboriginal Land. We are here. We always have been and always will be.”
