Colonial Wallpapers - Mantle of Perception (panel 5)

Artist Helen S Tiernan (born 1952)

Date2017

Object number00055154

NamePainting

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsOverall: 1785 × 610 × 40 mm

ClassificationsArt

Credit LineANMM Collection

Terms

DescriptionColonial Wallpapers - Mantle of Perception by Helen S Tiernan, panel five of five. This panel, edged with flowers along the one side, depicts a reconstructed stone house at Tyrendarra that was built and used by the Gunditj Mirring people of western Victoria. In the distance are an array of buildings reflecting European settlement including monuments, factories and civic buildings. The artist Helen Tiernan paints a panorama intermingling Australian colonial and modern references. Vast in both its geography and timelines, the painting presents a mix of European and Indigenous perceptions of the land.HistoryIn this panel of 'Colonial Wallpapers - Mantle of Perception' Helen S Tiernan presents the viewer, looking through the edge of trees, an imagined landscape. In the foreground stands a replica of a stone shelter built and used by the Gunditj Mirring people at Tyrendarra in Victoria. These stone houses, whose stone baes were constructed of basalt rocks, are located in the Lake Condah region of Victoria. They represent the permanency of Aboriginal people in the landscape. Here communities undertook large scale eel breeding with an extensive channel system spreading over a proposed area of 30 kilometres. At an estimated 8,000 years old, these structures in the Budj Bim National Heritage Landscape are an ancient presence, dwarfing the more elaborate structures along the coastline in the distance. In the far left of the panel almost indiscernible is a rear view of Sidney Nolan's Ned Kelly. Kelly here holds two spears instead of his shotgun. Once an outsider and hunted, Kelly is now seen as a national hero, linked with the Australian identity. And yet others seen as ‘outsiders’ and persecuted such as Indigenous people have not shared in a history being reconstructed and retold. SignificanceArtist Helen Tiernan's painting 'Colonial Wallpapers - Mantle of Perception' is significant as an example of modern re-interpretation of colonial history from an Indigenous perspective.