Images(2)

'This' is Australia!

Date2017

Object numberV00055891

NameArtwork

MediumMixed media drawing with graphite pencil, wax pencil, Graphic Chemicals & Ink Co. Ink, bitumen and Shellac, on 6 MDF (medium-density fibreboard) boards.

DimensionsOverall (panels together): 1800 × 4500 mm

ClassificationsArt

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum Collection

DescriptionProvided below is a short example of the thesis content directly relating to the artwork. The text is taken from The Australian Colonial-Collective Problem, 2017, part submission for the degree of Doctor of Visual Arts Queensland College of Art, Art, Education and Law, Griffith University, June 2017 by David Jones. https://www.corvineart.com/news “Gun and sword flag and drum! That's how a'settlin's done! Bury the bodies and cover the graves, That's how Australia's made! So on and on and around they go, Acts held high and mind down low, Will they stop? Nobody knows, Caught in their colonial dream... Far to the right, the light of Capitol Hill’s pyre of nation burns brightest as the devotees stoke their fervent blaze for Australia Day. Smaller flares in red, blue, and white dot that dreary landscape, patriotic communities all march on and on through their archaic dreams of benign cultural superiority. Would that those with their shoulders to the task cease their toil for a moment, spell that old horse Glory for a time, and reflect on their actions. That old creaking corpus of empire remains upon its curved course though, driven on by the fervent and indifferent alike. Upon a re-inscribed land, the Australian ‘settler’ treads with infinite care, lest their footfall tear the thin veneer of a carefully crafted nation state. Their march of Australian progress and pride leaves an intergenerational wake of imposed physical and mental trauma that ripples through the already rent cosmos of Indigenous peoples’ interconnection and reciprocation. Out here, flitting along the pressure seams of “Malinowski shapes”, where my identity often finds itself, my attitude is checked by tendrils/vanes of memory that orient my perspective. From here, between the Indigenous socio-cultural bio-cosmos and ‘settler’ landscaped Australian society and culture, ‘settler’ colonial-collective denial looks much like a churning vicious cycle of anxiety. The flow of the ‘settler’ colonial-collective on its seeming curved course kicks up a socio-culturally corrosive, looming storm-front of individually minute, culturally abrasive actions and inactions. The great monoliths that ‘settler’ Australians struggle with, ever and on, in their endless march of action without reflection, leave an audible wake. Generated by the hollows and holes in those national constructs, the monotonous whine is tolerated or ignored by a minority in the ‘settler’ Australian society. Many more chant in sanctimonious harmony as they toil for nation or sing along in strident and over-exuberant glee. Either way, dancing or marching, they ignore the odd clatter and crunch of bone underfoot. Most has been swept away, before the majority advance, or hidden in the national cabinet of historical denial, and the individual family cupboards of personalised misremembering. The ever-expanding socio-cultural storm-front is lit up by the perpetually polarising racial frisson along its outward frontier. Those ‘settlers’ who form the intergenerational vanguard of ‘progress’ work where lightning strikes of ‘pure white policy’ earth, in the light of the crackle and flicker of simplistic, racial ideologies they toil. The pure/sterile white light illuminates their immediate course, blinding them from future ramifications attached to present actions, and the effects of past actions on their present course. Australian politicians and polity alike remain trapped in their bright ‘false now’, a “false concept of reality”, dissociated from reality through the pursuit of material wealth, power, and prestige. Would that their cold hearts warm with empathy, that the splinter of racial looking glass in their eyes melt; then they could see their own footprints ahead of them in the land, churned up by their cyclic procession, and step aside from that eddy of denial and onto a path of real progress. - David Jones, unpublished poetry, 2015. Healy, Literature and the Aborigine in Australia, 1770-1975. Gilbert, Because a White Man’ll Never Do It, xvii. Such as Hans Christian Andersen’s Kay in The Snow Queen story found at the website, H.C. Andersen Centret, “Hans Christian Andersen: The Snow Queen,” accessed 15 May 2017, http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheSnowQueen_e.html#top. Three works selected from the 2020 Cairns Indigenous Arts Fair reflecting voices of First Nations Peoples in truth telling in response to the conversations around of the 250 Anniversary of Lieutenant Cook’s Voyage to the Eastcoast of Australia. The works are observations and commentary of the generational impacts of trauma of Cook and colonisation on First Nations Peoples today. This work was submitted to the Undercurrents – Cook 2020 exhibition. The works addressed the imbalance of (written) colonial history Vs First Peoples’ (oral) history, through a various art mediums. Artists surveyed the impact of Cook and what he symbolises to First Peoples’ of Queensland. 1.Title: 'This' is Australia! Artist: David Jones Size: 180 x 450 x 2 Medium Mixed Media on drawing board Jones looks at the concept that Phillip founded the nation and Cook founded Australia. The art reflects a re-enactment of Invasion and Robbery and why each year there is that Anniversary celebrating invasion. Jones says he looks at the denial that still exists in Australia of the murderous foundation and the viscous cycles of anxiety and looks at Australian nation as a subject. The acting without thinking or reflecting on their actions, indicating there's an eternal pushing across the landscape that colonisers make what the Australia is to them. The image reflects the cavalcade of continuous shoving the old horse story/concept across a landscape. HistoryThis work has been acquired from the Undercurrents exhibition run by Cairns Indigenous Art Fair and on display at Tanks Art Centre, Cairns. A specific exhibition giving an Indigenous voice to the year 2020 which marks 250 years since Cook arrived on the East Coast of Australia. This exhibition addresses the imbalance of (written) colonial history versus First Peoples' (oral) history, through a collection of works of mixed mediums. Artists survey the impact of Cook and what he represents to First Peoples' of Queensland. Undercurrents is a platform for truth telling, from an individual, family, community or First Peoples world view. Further Information: The doctoral thesis pertaining to this work can be found as a pdf document on the following page, https://www.corvineart.com/news, under the news article, Australian Anosognosia, a solo exhibition at Woolloongabba Art Gallery 2017. SignificanceThis work has been acquired from the Undercurrents exhibition run by Cairns Indigenous Art Fair and on display at Tanks Art Centre, Cairns. A specific exhibition giving an Indigenous voice to the year 2020 which marks 250 years since Cook arrived on the East Coast of Australia. This exhibition addresses the imbalance of (written) colonial history versus First Peoples' (oral) history, through a collection of works of mixed mediums. Artists survey the impact of Cook and what he represents to First Peoples' of Queensland. Undercurrents is a platform for truth telling, from an individual, family, community or First Peoples world view.

Artist’s Statement:
Early in my art education I began utilizing visual scholarship to articulate a critique of Australian society. My identity derives from an ‘settler’ Australian heritage, and Indigenous Dalungbarra heritage. My great-great-grandmother was known as Mary Anne Dalungdalee, of the Dalungbarra, who was born at Wanggoolba Creek on K’gari, or Fraser Island in the early 1800s. My family is now included in the Butchulla Native Title Claim. My Dalungbarra heritage informs my art process and work, is the resolve that drives my visual practice. I currently operate Corvine Art Studio, in Brisbane.