MAY 13, 2006 - AUGUST 13, 2006
Christopher Pease‘s work New Water Dreaming featured in Right here right now: Recent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander acquisitions at the National Gallery of Australia.
Right here right now: Recent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander acquisitions presents a selection of works from across the breadth and depth of Indigenous visual art and culture in Australia over the past two centuries, acquired during the last two years, which have not yet been on public display. Media include bark painting, fibre-work and textiles, print-making, drawing, painting and sculpture, with themes ranging from the ancestral and ancient in Indigenous and European time, to the cutting edge of political society in Australia today.
This painting is drawing direct reference from the hand-coloured lithograph produced by Louis Auguste de Sainson … [who] was the appointed draughtsman on the Astrolabe commanded by Dumont d’Urville. The lithograph itself was printed in 1833. The image depicts the area within King George Sound, south-west Western Australia, probably Middleton Beach. In the foreground members from d’Urville’s expedition load water onto one of the ship’s longboats via a long flexible hose. Interaction between the crew and the Minang people is obvious and positive with several individuals helping to load water. This historical image is a rare snapshot of some of the first interaction between the European and Minang people. It shows the exchange of ideas however different they are. It is the point where new ways of thinking are discovered.
-NGA