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L: Unknown, A study in Black & White - Monamona Mission, 1914, digital image. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland | R: Gertrude DAVIS, Caught in a bushfire I 2011, digital print, 60 x 42cm (image sheet). Courtesy of the artist
Nickeema WILLIAMS, Existence 2014, digital print, 45.0 x 62.0 cm (image), 63.5 x 73.5 cm (sheet). Courtesy of the artist
L: Daniel MARQUIS, Man wearing breastplate inscribed, King Sandy, Brisbane 1864-1869 | R: Unknown, Brass plate is inscribed “Maria, Queens of Childers” with kangaroo and emu upon either side ca 1908
Tony ALBERT, Alien 2019, synthetic polymer paint and found objects on steel, 120 x 460cm. Courtesy of the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney
Russell DRYSDALE (1912 - 1981), Group of Aboriginal people 1953, oil on canvas, 50.8 x 61 cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales Collection. Photo: Jennie Carter, AGNSW
Michael COOK, The Mission [Aboriginal Bride] 2011, inkjet print, 124 x 100cm; 135.6 x 111.7cm (sheet). Tweed Regional Gallery, Murwillumbah. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program, 2016
Christian THOMPSON, Untitled #7 from the King Billy series 2010, C-type print, 100 x 100 cm. Private collector, Melbourne
The notion of identity – who we are, how we see ourselves and how others see us – is a source of deep fascination. QUEEN’S LAND: BLAK PORTRAITURE aims to explore how black identity in Queensland has been defined and visually represented through portraiture by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists from the late 19th century to the present.
The relationships between personal, cultural and national identity are examined in relation to portrait images that are framed by and perpetuate the dominant colonial, cultural and racial stereotypes, and images where black artists represent themselves and others as they want to be seen, contesting past discourses and engaging with new discourses around race and identity.
Displayed across the ground and first floor galleries, QUEEN’S LAND: BLAK PORTRAITURE is a major exhibition curated by the Cairns Art Gallery and guest curators Djon Mundine OAM, and CIAF Artistic Director, Janina Harding.
Original artworks and archival images from a diverse range of artistic conventions have been brought together to form visual narratives that raise questions of identity and connection to country; the exotic; types and stereotypes; dis/ empowerment; activism; and imagining ourselves as we want to be seen. A substantial publication supports the exhibition, with commissioned essays by Michael Aird, Julie Gough, Djon Mundine, Dr Sandra Phillips and Janina Harding that address and contextualise the subject matter and themes of the exhibition.
