Covering the public space walls of Carriageworks, Stockwoman is the largest work to date by Arrernte and Kalkadoon artist Thea Anamara Perkins. Drawing on her family history, Perkins paints her great-grandmother and Arrernte elder Hetty Perkins, who from the age of 14 worked riding horses and branding cattle in the gold mining settlement of Arltunga, 110 km east of Mparntwe (Alice Springs). In response to the national myth of Ned Kelly, Perkins reimagines a First Nations matriarch as the truest representation of a strong and daring spirit. She adapts the visual vernacular of the Australian Gothic tradition, to acknowledge the role this trope has played in framing the Australian landscape. By tracing a First Nations matriarchal line from Mparntwe to Gadigal Country, Sydney, Stockwoman reframes national foundation myths.
Curated by Aarna Fitzgerald Hanley.
Image: Thea Anamara Perkins, Stockwoman, 2022, Carriageworks. Photo: Zan Wimberley
This is a free exhibition.
Wed-Sun, 10am-5pm
Thea Anamara Perkins is an Arrernte and Kalkadoon artist, raised and based in Sydney with family ties to the Redfern community. Using her family’s photographic archive as source material, her paintings incorporate portraiture and landscape to depict First Nations peoples and Country. Through her work Perkins questions representation and how First Nations peoples can and should be portrayed in contemporary Australia.
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Presented by Carriageworks with Major Partner Bloomberg
