Julie Dowling and HJ Wedge

For the final assessment I want to look at urban aboriginal artists, who work in the field of painting, who have different styles and backgrounds, but explore common themes. Along with Daniel Boyd, I wish to look at the paintings of Julie Dowling and H.J. Wedge.

H.J. Wedge was born on Erambie Mission near Cowra in central New South Wales. He works with acrylic paint in a colourful childlike style to explore issues in Aboriginal life today.

'Alcoholism-2' 2008 acrylic on canvas 60 x 90 cm

Julie Dowling's heritage is Irish, Russian, Jewish and Aboriginal, but she identifies mostly with her Aborginal side. She combines a western style of portraiture painting with dot painting, to explore political issues within Indigenous culture today.

Self Portrait Blackbird

Final Assessment

On this blog i have looked at art from a variety of indigenous australian artists whose work interests me. An artist I wish to research further for the final is Daniel Boyd, who I have looked at in this blog before. Boyd is an urban artist who employs a western style of painting to look back at the colonisation of Australia, and reveal the truth, that the colonisers were not heroes, but stole the land from it's indigenous inhabitants.

Self Portrait by Daniel Boyd

Michel Riley

In the tute last week we looked at a reading that discussed the works of photographer micheal riley. His works often look at the effect of the impact of christianity on indigenous Australians, particularly in the series 'Sacrifice'. This series of 15 haunting images suggest the damaging effects of the introduction of christianity. The works explore the truth behind colonisation, revealing that the way in which the christianity robbed indigenous Australians of their culture.

Untitled from the series Sacrifice [palms with stigmata], 1992

Michael RILEY Untitled from the series Sacrifice [stone cross/crucifix], 1992

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