Judy Watson
Waanyi people QLD b.1959
Blood and Bone 1992
Mixed media on canvas
196 x 145 cm
One of Australia’s most acclaimed contemporary artists, Judy Watson won the prestigious Moët & Chandon Fellowship in 1995 and represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1997, amongst many other achievements. Her work has been acquired by every major art museum in Australia including the National Gallery, Canberra as well as internationally by institutions including the British Museum and the Tate.
Watson is a Waanyi woman; her matrilineal grandmother’s country is around Lawn Hill Gorge in northwest Queensland. The artist is best known for her atmospheric, layered paintings on un-stretched canvas that convey her personal vision of the land – her country – that underpins her practice.
Watson’s approach to landscape is exemplified in this painting. Land, sea and sky are depicted as part of a unified whole, as if the viewer is looking from multiple perspectives at once. Watson uses natural pigments, which she mixes with water and then allows to pool on the surface of the canvas, creating a watery landscape. The ground is then overlaid with iconography of personal and cultural significance: a necklace of white forms which resemble bone fragments or perhaps stars in the night sky; and trails of small red markings referencing bloodlines and the connectedness of everything.
The title of the work reflects the deep connection of First Nations people to country; as well as alluding to the acts of violence and dispossession experienced by Australia’s original inhabitants since European colonisation in the late eighteenth century.
Blood and Bone can be viewed on Plaza Level.