First Light

Artist Neil Healey

Date2014

Object number00054542

NamePainting

MediumAcrylic, gouache and ink on board

DimensionsDisplay dimensions: 730 × 730 × 30 mm
Overall: 730 × 730 × 24 mm

ClassificationsArt

Credit LineANMM Collection

Terms

DescriptionPainting by Neil Healey titled 'First Light', it depicts the HMB ENDEAVOUR moored in Botany Bay in a thick fog. This work gives a sense of the heaviness and darkness related to the distant ship the HMB ENDEAVOUR. The artist re-imagines what the ship would have looked like to the Indigenous people of Australia as they saw it for the first time in the early light of the morning.HistoryThis work by Neil Healey was produced for East Coast Encounter, a multi-arts initiative involving Australian Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists, writers and songwriters to re-imagine the encounter by Lieutenant James Cook and his crew with Indigenous people in 1770. Cook's voyage along the Australian east coast has become central to national historical narratives. The East Coast Encounter project asked artists to re-envisage this seminal journey by imaginatively exploring moments of contact between two world views during these encounters. It also brought these events into the present by incorporating artists' reflections on their relevance today, and their responses to visits to significant contact locations. Topics such as encounter, impact, differing perspectives, nature and culture and views of country are investigated. SignificanceThis painting by Neil Healey is significant in providing an Indigenous view of first contact and European occupation of Australia.