Colonial Wallpapers - Pacific Encounters (panel 4)

Artist Helen S Tiernan (born 1952)

Date2017

Object number00055117

NamePainting

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsOverall: 1810 × 610 mm

ClassificationsArt

Credit LineANMM Collection funded by ANMM Foundation

Terms

DescriptionThe fourth image in a series of five painted panels by Helen S Tiernan titled 'Colonial Wallpapers - Pacific Encounters'. This panel has a map like background featuring compass points and navigation lines. There is a landscape of tall mountains with islands and foreshores trimmed with different species of trees including palms. On one of the shores stands a figure similar to an Easter Island Moai overlooking the sea. On the base of the panel is a lagoon with a floating naked woman with on the very bottom in a mythical place are two mermaids. 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'.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.