Perth, Western Australia

Group Nyoongar

Born 1951, South Perth, Western Australia

Lives and works in Balingup, Western Australia

My recent work refers to the Government’s attempts to superimpose ‘white’ domestic values over South-West Nyungar culture and onto Aboriginal women in the late 1950s and 60s.

As part of the Assimilation Policies of that era, Aboriginal families previously living in makeshift dwellings on the fringe of towns, were taken and placed in modern white housing, they were then expected to learn how to take care of the property literally, overnight. The work expresses the absurdity of this preposterous notion.

The women, in particular, were expected to disregard 50,000 years of Indigenous ‘learning’ and take on the white ways as they relate to domestic situations. These paintings individually refer to the difficult task Aboriginal women had when faced with alien domestic tools and machinery that were almost taken for granted in most white households during that era.

The work represents the sense of alienation, unacceptance and acute disapproval that Aboriginal people experienced because culturally, they had little to no appreciation for the materialistic trappings of ‘white’ domesticity

COLLECTIONS

Art Gallery of Western Australia

Berndt Museum of Anthropology Aboriginal Art Collection, WA

City of Bunbury Collection

City of Perth Art Collection, Perth, WA

Claremont School of Art Collection, WA

The Dutch Consulate, Canberra, ACT

Edith Cowan University Collection, WA

Holmes à Court Collection

Queens University Collection of Indigenous Art, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Royal Archives, The Netherlands

University of Western Australia, Perth, WA

Western Australia Museum Collection, WA

The Sir James Cruthers Foundation, WA

Kidman/Cruise Collection, Sydney, NSW

Dr K. Schefczik, Frankfurt, Germany

National Gallery of Victoria

National Gallery of AustraliaMurdoch University Collection

Parliament House of Western Australia