She Feels, She Sees, She Makes

curated by Carol McGregor.
featuring: Debbie Taylor Worley, Glennys Briggs, Kim Ah Sam, Carolyn Stubbin, Susan Gourley, Paula Payne

She Feels, She Sees, She Makes is a trans-disciplinary conversation being had between six women, three Indigenous and three non-Indigenous, who find themselves coming together for the first time through the commonality of the she aspect of humanity, the feminine. Together, these women explore how this coming together through cultural histories translates to meaningful relationships to country in Australia.

Speaking through the mediums of painting, printmaking, sculpture, and photography, this group of artists harness the power of cross-cultural dialogue to explore the nurturing and regenerative powers of the feminine aspect of humanity. This comes as a direct response to current hierarchical systems of power belonging to the patriarch. Here, ideas relating to myth, race, gender, empowerment, ancestry, scarification of country, spirituality, fertility, history, colonialism, ecology, identity, as well as sense of place and belonging through storytelling, are explored through a multitude of motifs, iconography, metaphors and allegories.

By translating these social, cultural, political and environmental references into a visual aesthetic, She Feels, She Sees, She Makes navigates cross-cultural terrains through the legacies of colonialism. Thus, seeking different ways to reimagine and reinterpret ourselves through the feminine aspect, as experienced through this cultural diversity.

Debbie Taylor Worley’s (Gamilaraay) investigations into what it is to be powerfully feminine in today’s male dominated society, has led her to create artwork based around the female figure and primordial symbols used in religious and metaphysical practices that honour the sacred feminine. Taylor Worley’s large energetic canvas’s sing across the space radiating cultural designs inspired by the tree carvings and northern hemisphere symbology of her heritage.

Glenys Briggs (Taungurung and Yorta Yorta) focuses on the women in her immediate maternal her lineage - her Great Grandmother, Grandmother and Mother for they were the ones that instilled pride in her cultural heritage and the sense of who Briggs is as a First Nations woman. Briggs’s artist book, Barban’s outer skin of kangaroo hide softly enfolds stories of her Elders with layered, textural narratives of hardship and courage forming a powerful physical core to the work.

Kim Ah Sam (Kuku Yulanji, Kalkadoon) expresses her deep connection to country and her cultural identity through her art practice. Ah Sam’s reflective mark making on paper signifies familiar landscapes, with tracks of journeys taken and histories that evoke emotive readings.

Carolyn Stubbin has collaborated with Uncle Burragun John Long on The Cutting. Stubbin, a fourth-generation descendent of European settlers, grew up on Uncle Burragun’s country where their stories intersect and diverge. This work offers an examination of the discourses concerning this landscape while merging with other elements that shape and influence notions of identity – history, culture and gender.

Susan Gourley traces back to Australia’s invasion and colonisation the Eurocentric and anthropocentric ideologies towards nature, to reveal their ecological impact.  Gourley questions dominant narratives towards ‘country’ by utilising the visual metaphor of salvaged material combined with the handcrafted mimetic qualities of trompe l'oeil.  Concerned about local and global environmental crises her  “junk aesthetic of the unmonumental” exposes cross-cultural histories that open new respectful ways of thinking about how we connect to land and self.

Paula Payne’s painting practice is an ongoing inquiry as to how she can express the environmental angst of our times through representations of the landscape. Payne’s compositions of the real and the imagined, explore local and global dimensions of human innovation, intervention and cultural ruins creating a paradox between beauty and anxiety.

She Feels, She Sees, She Makes is a collection of works that facilitate a greater understanding and responsibility of connecting to land and to ourselves as human beings, as well as meaningful relationships to ‘country’ as Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal women in Australia.