Heroes of Colonial Encounters - Jemmy

Artist Helen S Tiernan (born 1952)

Date2017

Object number00055139

NamePainting

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsOverall: 362 × 262 × 20 mm

ClassificationsArt

Credit LineANMM Collection

Terms

DescriptionA painting of Jemmy by Helen STiernan. This painting is part of a series of portraits that make up 'Heroes of Colonial Encounters'. The painting is based on one of a series historic portraits made in 1836 by William Fernyhough who was an assistant surveyor and architect under Major Thomas Mitchell. In Fernyhough's painting the man depicted is titled 'Jemmy, Newcastle tribe'. HistoryThis painting is part of a series of portraits that make up 'Heroes of Colonial Encounters'. Helen Tiernan explores the singular European view of colonial history and the way Indigenous peoples are depicted as the 'primitive' or 'other'. The portraits she paints of Bennelong, Bungaree, Colby, Bidgee Bidgee, Ballodere and Tommy sees them equal to their European contemporaries such as Cook, Joseph Banks, William Bligh, Arthur Philip and Matthew Flinders. All portraits are to hang together on the same wall, equally ornate, equal in style and equal in history. It is noted in 1827 by naval surgeon Peter Cunningham that: "...(Bob Barret) Johnny M’Gill, and Jemmy Jackass, from the Newcastle settlement, are certainly a remarkable exception to the general body, as these individuals cleared ten acres of heavy-wooded land for the missionary at Reid’s Mistake ... and they proved of eminent service to him as bush-constables in tracing and apprehending runaways. Certainly three more powerful intelligent men he could not have selected, and such good marksmen were they, that every living thing would drop before the muzzles of their pieces, nothing chagrining them more than missing their aim..." [Cunningham, Peter. Two Years in New South Wales: a Series of Letters, Comprising Sketches of the Actual State of Society in that Colony; of its Peculiar Advantages to Emigrants; of its Topography, Natural History, ec., etc., Henry Colburn, London, 1827, vol. 2, pp 26-27.] SignificanceThis painting of Jemmy by Helen S Tiernan provides a dual perspective of histories and first encounters in Australia and through the Pacific. Most post-colonial art takes its subject from earlier colonial times, but this doesn’t mean their interests are purely historical. To the contrary, the point of post-colonialism is to show how many unresolved issues from colonial history are embedded in the present.