Colonial Wallpapers - Pacific Encounters (panel 3)

Artist Helen S Tiernan (born 1952)

Date2017

Object number00055116

NamePainting

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsOverall: 1810 × 610 mm

ClassificationsArt

Credit LineANMM Collection funded by ANMM Foundation

Terms

DescriptionThe third image in a series of five painted panels by Helen S Tiernan titled 'Colonial Wallpapers - Pacific Encounters'. This panel shows a map of the world in the background with a world globe held up by two men with a ribbon reading ‘Men of Labour & Science'. Atop the globe the Disney cartoon version of Lewis Carroll's Alice lies on the grass next to the white rabbit and an empty bottle of medicine while looking into the rabbit hole. Over them, the Queen of Heart stands amongst bushes at the entrance to an empty castle corridor. Based on the conventions and elements of early European sea charts, the painting 'Colonial Wallpapers - Pacific Encounters' incorporates a central compass rose, rhumb lines and wind gods in a reconstruction of the Pacific. Combining images of Cook's voyage artists with the mythical, romantic and ridiculous, this vast panorama questions the image of the Pacific brought back to Europe during Pacific Encounters in the 'Age of Discovery'.History SignificanceArtist Helen Tiernan's painting 'Colonial Wallpapers - Pacific Encounters' is significant as an example of modern re-interpretation of Pacific history from an Indigenous perspective.
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.