seeRED was Simone Arnol’s first solo exhibition at the Cairns Art Gallery and was supported through a Cairns RSL Club Artist Fellowship.

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.

Cairns-based emerging artist Simone Arnol is a Gunggandji women. Located on the lands of the Gunggandji people in coastal Far North Queensland, Yarrabah is a vibrant, cultural place and is widely acknowledged as the largest Aboriginal community in Australia. Yet, like much of colonised Australia, Yarrabah is steeped in a complex and tumultuous history of violent displacement and cultural suppression as a result of missionisation.

The history of Yarrabah has often been recounted from a non-Aboriginal perspective and typically focuses on the life and work of mission superintendent, Ernest Gribble (1868-1957), or on a toned-down interpretation of the Aboriginal experience. Only limited literature offers true insight into the deeply personal legacies and stories of the early Aboriginal residents of the Yarrabah mission days from 1892 to 1960.

Born in around the 1880s, the late Tottie Joinbee was one of the early Aboriginal residents removed to Yarrabah. She lived to 110 years and was affectionately known as Granny Tottie. She remains a deeply respected woman who held onto her cultural identity and knowledge despite the efforts of colonisation and the missionaries.

Drawing on historical oral accounts and Kathleen Denigan’s Reflections of Yarrabah (2008), Arnol recreated the memories and significant events of Granny Tottie, ultimately forming a visual record of her great grandmothers’ life. The 1899 Yarrabah: Church of England Aboriginal Mission: rules and regulations booklet also informed Arnol’s portraits, revealing deplorable accounts of starvation, slave labour and punishment. Each portrait is layered with a multitude of meanings, perspectives and history, with the dramatic and symbolic use of the colour red tethering the works together.

This deeply personal and evocative series of works exemplifies the power of contemporary portraiture in its ability to retell and ‘regenerate’ people and histories that were deliberately minimised, disregarded and suppressed.

Rebecca Ray (Meriam), First Nations Curator, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra