The Haunted and the Bad

4 July - 10 August 2008

Tony Albert, Joel Birnie, Nici Cumpston, Andrea Fisher, Yhonnie Scarce
Curated by Julie Gough
Opens 6-8pm Thursday 3 July 2008

The Haunted and the Bad is an exhibition featuring five contemporary artists of Australian Indigenous heritage whose cultural identity spans four states. Their individual styles are unique, engaging and personal.
This exhibition explores the notion of an aftermath of invasion told within narratives that are often haunting and bad.

Tony Albert is a Brisbane based artist whose family is from Girramay Language group from Far North Queensland's rainforest region. Provoked by what the artist states as stereotypical representation of Indigenous Australians in mainstream culture, his ironic use of wordplay, paintings and wall based installations examine cultural alienation and displacement. Albert is a member of the proppaNOW Aboriginal artists collective.

Joel Birnie's Digital film and installation piece titled Maleetyé 'the Palawa word meaning blossom' is inspired by "mission" dress of the Nineteenth Century. Adorned with symbolic embroidery, flowers, and shell's all representing the identification of contemporary Indigenous Tasmanian culture with the women who survived genocide. Birnie asks, "What would I be as an Indigenous artist without Fanny Cochrane Smith"

Nici Cumpston is descendent of Barkindji language group of NSW. Her photographic portraits of Nookamka Lake, in the Riverland of South Australia reveal a layer of interconnected stories that are emerging from the deliberate drying of the lake. Submerged Indigenous history is reappearing after years spent hidden from sight. Cumpston explores the ' signs' evident in trees that once acted as markers of sights of significance and reflect the connection people have had with this landscape for thousands of years.

Andrea Fisher, whose language group is Birri-Gubba, is a Brisbane based artist who makes positive and unsettling assertions through slogans and witticisms etched and cut into shackles made from brass and bullet casings. Her shackle works represent the physical constraints that bind Indigenous people to desperate situations.

Melbourne based multidisciplinary artist Yhonnie Scarce works with glass to address the direct effects of the devastating illness resulting from alcohol abuse since its introduction to her grandparents in the 1940's. Scarce's work represents each family member consumed by the 'bottle'. She is descendant of Kokatha and Nukunu Language groups.

Gallery Hours are Tuesday - Sunday 1.00 - 6.00pm. For further information and/or images please contact Programs Director Jan Duffy on 9209 6794 or email info@lindenarts.org.

This exhibition is part of Victoria's NAIDOC week celebrations and is supported by the City of Port Phillip.

The Haunted & the Bad - Artist Floor talks

Linden - Centre for Contemporary Arts
2pm Saturday 5 July 2008

You are invited to join curator Julie Gough and the artists in The Haunted and the Bad for a tour of the exhibition. Tony Albert, Nici Cumpston, Andrea Fisher, Yhonnie Scarce will take you through their exhibitions discussing the concepts behind their work, their techniques and use of materials.

According to the curator the work of these artists, reveals that history retains the lingering, accumulating prospect of Indigenous redress. Revoking the notion of an "aftermath" of invasion these artists situate themselves in an Australia permanently possessed by episodes of identifying, containing, representing and damaging 'difference'.

ADMISSION FREE
BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL

 

 

 

 


image: Andrea Fisher