Queen’s Land Blak Portraiture was a major Cairns Art Gallery exhibition based on research that explored relationships between personal, cultural and national identity in relation to historical and contemporary portrait images by Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists.

This exhibition forms part of the Cairns Art Gallery online First Nations Research Archive developed as part of the Gallery’s online Legacy Archive produced to celebrate the Gallery’s 30th anniversary.

Contemporary artists’ portraits in Queen’s Land Blak Portraiture explored how prevailing social, political, economic and cultural conditions, past and present, have shaped perceptions and representations of Indigenous Queenslanders. Works selected for the exhibition also reflected government policies that shaped public attitudes and the lives of Indigenous peoples in Queensland.

Historical portraits in the exhibition included archival photographs from early colonial times and from extensive mission settlement which had led to segregation, the control of Aboriginal peoples’ movements, and the removal of children from parents. The effects of these experiences are evident in the virtual lack of representation of Indigenous peoples in the mid-twentieth century, and it was not until 1967 that Indigenous Australians were counted in the Australian national census.

Contemporary artists represented in the exhibition included Vernon Ah Kee, Tony Albert, Michael Cook, Destiny Deacon, Fiona Foley, Heather Koowootha, Naomi Hobson, Danie Mellor, Dr Christian Thompson and Alick Tipoti.

The exhibition and supporting publication explored several narratives, such as identity and connection to country; the exotic and the ‘other’; types, stereotypes and profiling; narratives of dis/empowerment including segregation, protectionism, missions, family, education and assimilation; activism and human rights; and who we are now and how we want to be seen and heard. Narratives of youth were represented through Naomi Hobson’s Adolescent Wonderland series of photographs of young adults searching for individuality and identity in her home community of Coen.

While the cultures and histories of contact were very different, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples drew the similar understanding that portraiture and identity does not conform to a Western art construct of a vertical image or representation of a person. Rather, a person’s image can be portrayed through a cultural totem, a body marking, a footprint or handprint, a particular place, person’s name, or a ritual.

The use of the word blak in the exhibition title paid homage to a 1990s construct, where removal of the letter ‘c’ from ‘black’ started as a play on words attributed to activist artist Destiny Deacon. The spelling came to be used to convey notions of empowerment and self-determination – concerns that informed works selected for the exhibition.

This project is presented in partnership with the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair. It has been assisted by the Australian Government’s Visions of Australia Program and is supported by The John Villiers Trust, and the Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF) that is a partnership between the Queensland Government and Cairns Regional Council to support local arts and culture in regional Queensland.