Love[f]Art #07 | Tony Albert

https://www.loveart.com/lovefart/article/love-f-art-07Hosted by Amanda Love, the LoveArt podcast brings listeners into direct conversation with contemporary artists, extending the work of the independent art advisory, LoveArt, based in Sydney, New York and Athens.

The series draws from Love[f]Art, LoveArt’s ongoing program of intimate, in-conversation recordings with artists, originally conceived in 2020. Filmed in the most unlikely of settings—the guest powder room at the Love residence—the project strips things back to a one-to-one exchange, focusing on ideas, process and the conditions that shape contemporary practice.

This episode features Tony Albert’s Interior Composition Tile, an extension of Albert’s Conversations with Margaret Preston series which dissects 20th-century Australian artist Margaret Preston’s iconography with a reverse ethnography. Drawing on both personal and collective histories, Albert explores the ways in which optimism might be utilised to overcome adversity.

Recorded in March 2022, at the time of the work’s installation, the conversation offers a direct insight into the thinking behind the piece, and the broader concerns that underpin his practice.

Tony Albert is represented by Sullivan+Strumpf.

Additional information, including the video version of this podcast, is available here.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Hello and welcome to the seventh Out of ISO into the deluge and occupation iteration of Love Art's nano project space Love for R, where we multitask this purpose-built isolation chamber, which has almost resumed its proper use, aka our nano guest bathroom, as of White de Belize, to counter the increasing size and complexity of the world and contemporary gallery and museum spaces to explore a different kind of expression. Here, where we are on Gadigal Land, so I do pay my respects to the people of the Aura Nation and all their elders, we investigate the tiny and the one-to-one to showcase and now exhibit the strength of current artistic expression, which is by necessity innovative and ingenious. I'm Amanda Love, and it's my great pleasure to introduce our latest site-specific installation interior composition by Tony Albert. Tony, who was born in Townsville, a descendant of the Gidame, Yidanji, and Gugu Yulanji peoples, pursues a multidisciplinary practice that investigates contemporary legacies of colonialism, but in a way that prompts us to think quite specifically about the human condition. In particular, he draws on both personal and collected histories to explore how we can harness optimism, much in demand at the moment, I'm sure he'll agree, to overcome adversity. He asks us just how is it that we remember, give justice to, and rewrite complex and traumatic histories? He's the first Indigenous trustee for the Art Gallery of New South Wales and is also chair of their Indigenous advisory group and has exhibited widely both here and overseas. And he's also strongly represented in major national and prestigious art collections. Tony.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Hello, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Hello, how are you? It's so brilliant to see you in all I can describe as these most incontinent of times.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Isn't it crazy? It's uh been an amazing few weeks to to get through um and to to witness. And I mean, if COVID hasn't hit us at one thing and um floods and war, it's um definitely a great time for reflection.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

It is. It is. Are you okay? And is all your family okay? You've been hit by this?

SPEAKER_00 2:57

And you know, and it's worse, we were cut off and without power, but you know, witnessing the devastation that did surround us, you know, there's really a lot to be thankful for and to, you know, to be mindful of, I guess, what we can do to help rather than um to to have been affected by it. But the you know, the devastation really did hit home. There's just, you know, it it's not a case of looking and and just um perceiving what has happened, but I think, you know, at the moment it it's evident we we all know someone who has um you know been really, really affected by it. So it it does hit close to home. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Yes. Well, anyway, thank you. As I said, thanks for making the time to um do this project and uh do this interview. Now, um I just given, as I said in the introduction, uh your work stands very much from personal as well as pol as well as um collective experience. And I always think of it's jumping a bit ahead, but I will go back to the beginning in a minute. But I always think of your Ash on Me series, which I know you started in around 2009 and has evolved into a number of exhibitions since. Um, and we'll talk more about that later. But I think that relates so directly to your childhood, um, but which is also contextualized within a much broader social and a specifically political context. So I wondered if you'd tell us a bit about growing up in Townsville with your family, and while we just cycle through some of these works.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Yeah, of course. Um, so that's um, you know, North Queensland is where I call home, and that is very much uh uh not only ancestral family connections, um, and uh Townsville is the closest, or at that time, hospital to Cardwell, where we were living at the time. So yeah, it it is where I was born. Um and uh still, I guess where a majority of family ended up moving to, I guess the closest city of um I was about um Cardwell is about halfway between Townsville and Cairns. And I think for a lot um of uh community in that area, you kind of you either stayed there, which some family did, or you you kind of went to the the big smoke, Cairns or Townsville. And for some reason a lot of my family picked um Townsville um as to where they settled. So it was a constant um place where we traveled uh back to um, you know, during during childhood as well. But for a majority of my like schooling was actually in Brisbane, um, which I was very, very grateful for, um, you know, and a place, you know, that equally as much part of um, you know, my identity, I feel, and um where I was. But the that's really where the collection started for me, um, it a childhood um collection that stemmed from a very innocent viewpoint, um, and a viewpoint that came from love as well, from um growing up uh in a family where uh these kind of uh secondhand shops, goodwill shops was not only where we gathered um, you know, what we needed for for life, I guess, but um it's where I did uncover this kind of uh very uh incredible collection that that continued to grow as I did, um, morph and change in my perspective. But I always look back and think about that very innocent childhood perspective. And I I don't um, as much as the work deviates away from that, I always come back to um that perception of of love within the collection, which I think is kind of um, you know, very beautiful to always be able to go back um and think about those innocence of child eyes, how um, you know, with the the perspective hasn't um or you know, it changes, but to to always be able to go back to that is something I'm very grateful for. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

And I maybe talking about when you had the first realization though, you're sort of maybe it was called a loss of innocence um relating to these objects.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

It's an interesting, I mean, time, it it that that adolescence um where you're you know, you're starting to unravel your own political beliefs and ideals, and you might be starting to break away from the childhood experience where you kind of, oh, you just believe what your parents and family believe and that, and it's where you start to shape your own, you know, identity and stuff. And it was where, you know, I started to, you know, my uh the the encompass encompassedness um that art had um was was taking over on me and and that love and uncovering people like Gordon Bennett and Tracy Moffat, um, and that art no longer was necessarily just about a beautiful picture, but that the the connectedness and the idea um of the conceptual was starting, I was starting to understand that. Um, and that's when you know the the the innocence of this childhood collection, I started to understand the the deeper undertones of um this imagery and this mark making and um the the collection did it did change and it did spur on these kind of opportunities to connect um through the work, keeping in mind that uh it uh the the objects still were very far away from being part of my artwork themselves. Um but um the collection definitely was growing. And um, I mean, as like the ashtrays, uh when you look at something like Headhunter or what that doesn't include ashtrays. Ashtrays weren't a part of the uh I always did something very special for for those, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

So because I mean when you're talking about becoming more political, and it was very early on, I I think it was around 2004, wasn't it? When you were just what 23 years old? You did you founded the urban-based Indigenous art collective proper now, which included other now very important artists like Richard Bell, Vernon Arkey, I can think of Fiona Foley, I know there were others. Yes. Um so was was there in core was that when you started incorporating the text into your work as as a definite, as a provocative device? I'm thinking, and I'm now thinking of what you just I'm thinking of Headhunter that you just mentioned, the that extremely powerful work, which was I think 2007, and subsequently it's been put in another number of museum shows. And I think the art gallery now holds it, don't they?

SPEAKER_00 10:06

It was. It was my amazingly, it was my first institutionally collected piece. Um uh and yeah, it was it was collected at the time Hedy Perkins, the incredible curator Hedy Perkins was um at the at the Arch Guy of New South Wales at that time, um, and was able to see that work in situ in Brisbane and was able to buy it for the collection. But it was my first foray, I think, into um utilizing the collection within the opportunity, within a text-based piece. Um, and at the time, uh the the collection was it was it was moved to the studio because it was too big for home. And so I really want to stress that it was a a collection based on, you know, just buying things and having a little shelf set up at home and um yeah, and the shelf was getting bigger and bigger um and impossible to house and and work did uh the collection did go to the studio. And at the time I was just playing with it. Um, I was putting all plates together at one point. Um, and Headhunter came from uh one at one point just pulling out heads and kind of reconciling with the idea what did it mean to have an Aboriginal head on a souvenir object? What did it mean to hang that in the family home? Um, and that's that's where Headhunter came from. And if you would like the the kind of the idea that these what the the the objects from the collection could be pulled out in various ways for to really comment um a lot about um that the the industry of um aboriginalia um and and the the incredible significance it has had on Australian and international society without us necessarily delving too much into it. Um and what I mean by that is these are not objects that museums collected. They, you know, if anything, we were trying to sweep them under a rug. But what I really wanted to take from it was the incredible significance a whole generation of Australian society had um by um, you know, and for what having these objects represented in some way, shape, or form. And it might have been only one object in the family house that identified with Aboriginal Australia, but um, you know, there was definitely a um a huge way in which Australian society identified with indigenous people was absolutely but so you you seem to be consciously though, with hand of taking control of language and and using it to interrogate specifically this sort of cultural alienation.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Would you say that?

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Oh, absolutely, uh very intentionally, and and language um within its vernacular and in this context is so important um because of you know the multitudes of Aboriginal languages that um we have within uh Australia, but also you know, as an indigenous person, that you know uh my my own cultural language is secondary to English because of the denial or the uh the opportunity that was denied for my family to be able to speak language. Um, you know, so that that tension and that pull and pull that that push and pull that language brings, I think is is really important.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Because it was a lit, I mean what there's 60,000 uh Aboriginal languages. Is that around 60,000 in Australia?

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Uh no much there are 60,000, I think, years off uh continuing cultural history, but within Australia, there's two uh about 250 different um uh language groups, but that in that there's different dialects and stuff. So, you know, it breaks down in a huge, a great number um, you know, of uh different languages attached to Australia. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Um also interesting about Headhunter, I mean, it's it's there there are a number of people who could be hunters here, aren't there?

SPEAKER_00 14:14

That's right. It it is it is a uh it is a play on words. And what is interesting when I I take a great, I wouldn't say a great deal of pleasure, there's a uh uh an importance in the bastardization of language and being able to play with it as a language that is and isn't my first language. So I think uh there's a playfulness that happens with it, but with very serious kind of undertones. Hmm. It's a bit cheeky.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Well, it is. It is. I mean, we don't know whether it's you hunting by amassing these art items, or is it um, you know, the non-indigenous population who furnished their homes with them? I mean, is it the scientists who've collected the skeletal remains of Aboriginal people for research and continue to hold them in their own museums internationally? Or is it the people who have hunted Aboriginal people on the colonial frontier and warfare and massacres? I mean, they can go on and on here.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

That the exactly the purpose and intention. And I feel to be to hone it into something more prescriptive than that would be unuseful because it is about all those things. And yeah, and that's what I I love to pull out those words because of their ambiguity and the amount of readings that that can entail is is a very important part of the work. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

And then in in 2014, you won the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Award with the work We Can Be Heroes, which is of a different tenor, um, and which I understand was prompted by the 2012 police shootings of the the two Aboriginal teenagers in King's Cross.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

It was. It was at my point um I just moved to Sydney um through the um ArtSpace residency programs. It was the first opportunity for me to live and work outside of, I guess, what was my community at the time.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Yay, I have to give a plum here to ArtSpace, the Artspace residency programs inaugural in many artists' careers.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Yes. Um, absolutely. I'd found, you know, I'd stopped, I I had a I had eight years with the Queensland Art Gallery as well, within a professional capacity. And and it it was a time in my life where I, you know, do I want to continue within the professional institutional academia, or do I actually want to break out and and do art in my own right? And art space really did offer me that opportunity. Um, as a, you know, I was it was like, oh my God, what am I doing? Um going to a place like Sydney. Um, and consequently, 10 years later, I was still living here. I fell in love. I I found, I think I found my people in the sense of um, you know, uh, what Sydney offered me as a you know, as a person. I think the um, you know, not only the art scene, but Sydney very much at the forefront of Australia within the queer representation as well. And um, you know, a stone store away from Oxford Street where I was just in Sydney in general, and the the um it just um opened my eyes to so much potential and opportunity and re-evaluating um, you know, what life could be for someone like me. Um, and this this literally happened within those moments of of moving here and coming from a very political standpoint within a Brisbane community, I was very interested in how a place like Sydney would respond uh to something like this and how they did respond. And I I was very mindful that you know I wasn't here to come and take over or to I I just wanted to be a viewer, I wanted to listen to these young boys' story um and how we were and of you know going back 10 years now, so I was you know a bit younger, more more relatable to that, to um to those younger boys at the time. Um, but understanding the the the the feeling of what it is like um to have a perception perceived upon you from uh a look, um to understand what it's like to be surveilled, uh to be followed around, to be looked at as a criminal, uh to be the the you you're you're guilty in terms of having to to prove your innocence, not the other way around that you know society holds itself um at bay of you know the the presumption of innocence before guilt. It's very much the other way around as an Aboriginal person living and working, you know, within uh society. Um so I was you know, to me, it's a very collaborative work in a way. These boys really uh opened up to me, but were not saying anything that I wasn't already aware of or didn't understand, but the collective nature of um the perception of the Aboriginal male. This was also a time, you know, the intervention as well, where the this blanket of, you know, you felt like an abuser, you know, uh a woman basher, uh, you know, the all these stigma and stereotypes without one arrest were just blanketed on Aboriginal men. Very, you know, it was a very hard time to kind of to to think back it and to be living through and understanding this kind of idea of the finger pointing.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Um targeting as you as you make parents.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

I mean exactly, yeah. You know, but well when you work with, you know, when I worked with these young men, it was understanding that target is there, how we choose to live with it, we can own. Um, and and so that became the the the catalyst for the work. Like the target can victimize you or it can actually make you a hero.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Well, um that that brings us nicely because you mentioned collaboration before, and um you mentioned you know how it is that you work with that target because you did later develop this uh piece into a collaborative work with the children of the Warakuma. Yes, yeah. Was this was this, I mean it's not the first time you you've developed into collaboration, was it because you were you were you regarded your work with these young these young men as as as collaboration? Um but just let's talk about the the the collaboration with the children.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

Well, it was again you know, I'm such a big believer in collaboration. We should have more uh Aboriginal Aboriginal collaboration, we should have more Aboriginal, non-Aboriginal collaboration. Um, and uh at this point or at that point in my career, I do get a lot of invitations and opportunities. Um, and Warakina was a community that reached out to me because they did want to look at issues such as housing and health, um, things that are um outside of the scope of a traditional perspective of their work. And this is a community that is quintessential aboriginal when we think of what the you know, the kind of works they do, the beautiful big seven sister paintings, the thought art, they're they're just and and and it's interesting though for me when I think of political, these are the most political artists. Their intrinsic nature of country is above and beyond what most of us can ever think of. So they're they're my political heroes. And it's funny, they look at me and think, oh, I'm a political artist. But it is it was a community that wanted to look at contemporary issues and saw my work and and knew understood me through my work and thought, oh, let's contact Tony and get him out here to look at these things with us. And when you go to communities such as Warakuna, um, one of the things old people also wanted was engagement with young people. They can feel very lost. Um, you know, new technology, the world changing. Um, young kids um uh you know are really incredible collaborators and people to work with because they have such um incredible artistic vision. Um and that was so proud to show me around these um places that you see here, the car, the car graveyard, what it's called. Um, and it was an opportunity also to put children in charge, to tell them, I'm working for you, you need to tell me what to do. Um, and and let's go and do it. And it changes the whole mindset. Children very rarely get the chance to be the boss. Um, but they're actually taught the complete opposite to that. Um so what I love to do is change those role reversals um and and make sure that it's it's their voice that is the most important, the one that needs to be heard in this story. So they kind of just they direct it. They we walk around and and look at what could maybe make a great set, um, all their outfits. I mean, it's it's they look great, but they're very crudely made with garbage bags and cardboard. Um, but you know, we spend a lot of time um, you know, you know, working on that. And it's it's a really it's really wonderful. It's it's it's an opportunity I think not enough Australians get um to to be a part of, to work with, to to walk in someone else's shoes is the best way of understanding. And yeah, I'm so privileged to have the experiences working with remote communities. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Yes, you are, and and working with children. I mean, I think it's increasingly something the world is coming to terms to uh terms with paying a bit more attention. But I I suppose, and then we move on to your commission from the city, city of Sydney, in Inum Daimi, Thou Didst Let Fall, which is a completely a work of a completely different tenor, was a public sculpture for Hyde Park, um, which I know serves as a memorial to Aboriginal military history and features literally four expanded upright bullets and shell castings. Um was this, I mean, how can I put it? Was this this must have been a walking on eggshell type of project for you, was it?

SPEAKER_00 24:41

It was, I mean, the most amount of stakeholders ever for the city of Sydney, uh, an incredible journey uh of but something that came, I think, at the right time for me. Um it was like I probably would have normally avoided a project like this, but it it resonated so wholeheartedly um with a number of of stories attached to to my own family, and one in particular, which became the catalyst for the the work. Um, but I I it was also something I was prepared or very aware that it it wasn't about just making a beautiful sculpture. Um, it's not what I wanted the the work to be, and I don't feel um how the trajectory of this work should have gone. So it was really lovely that the city entrusted um me with the responsibility for this, but the community did as well. I worked with um Babana, an Aboriginal men's group here. Um the the the amount of um different voices that were collected on this journey was um you know such a wonderful experience and and opportunity. And I hope um, you know, that the realizations of uh war, of war that Australia has been in. And this was, you know, obviously this this uh the purpose of this um public artwork was was not for for First Nation wars either. You know, it doesn't count on um uh the the the the history that's attached to this country war for warfare. But um indigenous servicemen and women have had an integral part and and role within wars that Australia have fought since the Boer War in 1903, World War I and II, um and to be able to honor that in an in an in an with an opportunity that hadn't been um uh graced upon us before open that up to public and open that dialogue, um, that conversation was incredibly important. So it was a um it was a massive undertaking, but and but one um you know I was very proud to be involved in. And and and in your own family, the reception of the work, I mean, with that how how was it it was really I had a lot of family travel down for the opening ceremony for it, and and the the the work itself pertains to a story of my grandfather being a prisoner of war. Um each of the bullets represents uh people he was with at the time. Um, three of those men were um, you know, gave the ultimate sacrifice and were were murdered in this story. Um he was one of the survivors, along with another Aboriginal man from Western Australia, um, actually. But it was it was a because um the amount that there's just not a clear listing of Aboriginal people that served, and actually you couldn't enlist at the time as an Aboriginal person, um, these are all oral stories, um, stories that were, you know, that aren't in books. So um it's honoring that tradition or storytelling, but also honoring the story that is emblematic of these incredible stories that I started to hear from other people who had um family members uh in yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

So, in a sense, this work is the well the cast itself, it's the custodian of all these oral stories that were hitherto untold, and I presume now that they have have been written down um as part of the research for the work. So it's a whole body of knowledge and but that hitherto was was not uncovered or was not apparent.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

I hope so. It continues that body you know of knowledge, but also of ceremony, the the landscaping and the cool among me inserted, so you know that you aren't.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

And also, I mean, is there a relationship to the Pucamani poles?

SPEAKER_00 28:43

I mean, is that well there you know that it's definitely uh emblematic. Um as well. So there's a lot again. What I love to do is when when you do something like this and all those tangents become start to become realized and that it becomes so much greater than just me as as the artist. But um, yeah, it's it was um again a one of those wonderful opportunities and massive undertakings.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

Very potent. Now you may I I you mentioned before when you came to Sydney that you you suddenly had a realization of where you felt who you were and what you were doing because I I had that feeling about you uh very much so uh the work was at Artspace, I think it was called Exotic. It was in the show Just Not Australian in around 2019. And I really had the sense with that work that you had reached some kind of a watershed in your career in the sense that you knew exactly what you were doing and how you were doing it. And you you it it was kind of just you were on fire with with the work. So I can you sketch out some of the works or some of the events around this work at and the times that premised the exhibition in particular?

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Well, firstly, that's you know very kind to say because I I I I grapple, you know, you like to think you're a little bit more in control um or understanding of the work, but it it it's ever uh evolving. Um, but it it did get to, I mean, uh to a point um where the relationships between different objects became um I I just I feel I got better at it. And when you do do that, there's a level of confidence uh within you. And for some for some somehow or some reason that confidence confidence seems to elevate, um elevate us individually in different ways, but it you um I I still go back to the fact I do feel like a very shy person all the time because that is where I come from, and people say, Oh, you're not shy, but that that that is the vulnerability is still there, but you you you start to you get used to things or you you're able to to express yourself better, not as as good as I would like to, but you're getting better. Um, a lot of the nerves that I had when I was younger kind of um have have washed away. Um, so I think when you get to, and it I would like to think that's a natural progression. And I love talking to senior artists um uh because it it's a lot about the the confidence and the willingness or the fact that you can um you can be so uh have so much strength in a mark, in just one mark itself, that you don't need the periphery uh and the things to to to to pretty things up. You know, it's a strength just within the the one the one stroke. And I I'm far from there. Um, but there is a level of confidence um uh that um you know it it these works aren't as not so much challenging, but um I I feel um that that there's there's a there's a strength in being able to work like this and and a work like exotic other and those representations of us as people. Um I think you're right that it was a little more self-reflective than a lot of other works um in in how I felt either I was I was being perceived or my perception um uh that exudes from me. But um that's very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

Well, I I think it's a you it's a it's a very important inflection point in in an artist's career. Um I've I've heard number and I've a number of artists, you know, you can see it in in P you can see it in artists' work where there's just this, it's not a breakthrough, but and it's sometimes described as the work starts to do itself, but you just understand, you're not looking at your work or working on a thing. Suddenly you understand what it is you're doing and it naturally how it works, and then opens up a lot of other, a lot of other avenues within the work, which itself becomes more nuanced. But I mean it's a very um loaded, um there are a lot of ethical undertones in that loaded rejoinder, un Australian, just un Australian, which was the title of that exhibition, weren't it?

SPEAKER_00 33:18

Well, I mean a pack to punch, um, without a doubt, and um included uh such um important conversations that a country like Australia should be much more versed in, and much more open to um and much more willing to look at, understand, um, and progress.

SPEAKER_01 33:45

And of course, I mean that that phrase was used predominantly, and well, it was in the culture wars of of the 90s. Um, I think both Prime Minister and the One Nation Party uh used the phrase to sort of spark nationalistic ideals and grow political support each of them um for their own purposes.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

Uh yeah, and and uh a phrase that cuts deep either on the left or the right, I I feel it's that it it it it it just doesn't fit or s seem right to me um to to have any terminology that's un Australian. Well how um you know that the them I I always like to to um you know to think it's it's it's actually the the other, the diversity within that, which is the most um important. The most Australian of all, yes is is the fact that it is this incredible melting pot and it's it's actually what the the difference um equality is the acceptance of difference rather than things being exactly the same. Um yeah, so it's it's all those differences to me which make up Australia and it's so interesting when you get the other point where it's like actually it's a homogenized idea.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

Um so yeah, it's a it it it's so like what you include and one's what you exclude.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

That's right. And and what do we want? Yeah. We want including yes.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

And so we'll we'll we'll move move on to a a bit of a lighter tenant because there of course um is in your work uh an enormous use of humor. And I mean, let's talk about let's talk about your use of humor and reverse hero culture, um, which is uh a deliberate misrepresentation of popular culture as a tyrant. And I'm thinking of uh Wonderland of the same year as you made um exotic, it was 2019, and it was for a commercial show you had it, Sullivan and Strong.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

Yeah. Um and it's funny, I think humor is so important. And and you know, I what when you mentioned um people like uh Richard Bell and Vernon Arkey, uh and those other amazing artists that you know I've been able to to follow in their footsteps, they had to be so tough. Um, you know, they had to fight for their their right and their existence. And the fact that they've really they're privileged and enabled me to um I sometimes just make work for the sake of it. Um, that um humor is a wonderful, what we say, like guerrilla tactic. It's much easier um uh and better to make someone laugh uh to think about something than to yell and scream at someone that you know that that and become defensive. Um and and Wonderland is a wonderful testament to Sydney as well, because that is actually the sign from the theme park that um I walked past in a curbside collection and was able to just pick up from the side of oh my god, carry it to my studio. Um so um, but what a wonderful play on on Wonderland and um you know that a colonial idea of um you know this this country is just it is a wonderland. It's it's incredible. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

And and I mean, I I think that whole show is is a great example of the fact that humor is deadly serious.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

Absolutely. That's that's a great line, Amanda.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

I'm gonna use so so by now, Tony, you're you're a virtuoso, as as I've described, in terms of having a real understanding of your practice and pursuits. And I'm roofing a bit here, but can I say you're feeling a sense of uh freedom and scope? I mean, about your not only about your place and community in Australia and the world, but dare I say, art history. And I just wanted, Yvonne, in that context, we could talk about your most recent uh commercial show, which was the magnificent uh show conversations with Margaret Preston at Salomon and Strump. And that was an absolute virtuoso performance, that show.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Thank you so much. Um I yeah, I think there are moments, as you say, you you grow and you listen and you learn, and I do feel it probably comes from one of the most powerful um and insightful kind of merging of you know where the collection where I've gone to gone to um and to look at at someone um you know as impressive as Margaret Preston and the legacy that she kind of um left here, her own her story as well became really pivotal to this, but then this understand this such a greater understanding of where this kind of uh imagery um uh it's particularly with the fabric tech and textile designs um that were such a huge part of the collection that I I never used um and always wondered what would come out of them. And it just intrinsically things find as you say, the art finds you, it's not the other way around. And it and it um it was COVID, it was time of reflection. I was surrounded by these things. Um so um yeah, well, I I I'm really um I'm so grateful for those for those words because it it it does feel like a uh a really defining moment and point in my career as well.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

So with I mean, can you un unpick the just the relationship with Margaret Preston via your I mean you've touched on it just then, but that mean you collect I mean she had an amaz she had a um she was one of the first art well she was certainly a an an artist to engage with with uh traditional Aboriginal art in her earth uh and yet you had you knew about her a long time ago or was it a sudden realization that there was this huge connection between your work and her work and what was being what things that needed to be said by things that were being said by both of them, by both of these modes of expression?

SPEAKER_00 40:27

It's an absolutely complex conversation, but what I did love was that um and and did understand was that you know Margaret Preston really felt that Australia when when when it was at a point where artists were traveling to Europe and America um and really trying to find uh a voice, she really understood that that voice was here. Um he had a national visual identity, and that came through our First Nations people. I mean, that's a great credit to her. Um and um I just think what arose from that, um, when you have that at the pinnacle within the art world, it starts to get um it copied and reproduced and thought about, and in a way, it kind of um dived down through these, or was watered down, is a better version of it, through um the representation of these objects in homewares and souvenir objects. And it and it missed the kind of validity she was giving to that, even though um we would look at even now it being quite problematic, the use of those kind of images, even in a fine art world. But um, you know, I I absolutely give her a lot of credit for that, and particularly at a time where um she would have been most definitely discriminated against as a just a female in the arts, um, and you know, her work being, oh, it's just decorative, it's just vases of flowers and stuff like that. But you know, she was understanding, I think, a real uh intrinsic link between what she was doing and and where and who and how Australia could be. Um so that that unpacking for me um of those issues through the use of those beautiful bouquets that she was doing, I found to be uh a wonderfully uh um a utilization of that as a way of having that conversation became really quite amazing.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

If I don't know if we can get it, then I hope it works.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

It is all fabric that's cut. Um it's quite hard to see from images, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

I yes, I wonder, I don't know if we can get a close-up of that of the anchor work, which is that exploded, huge exploded bouquet that was at the back of the show. You might see, I don't know if we've got this one.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

Yeah, Chris Christmas bells, that is.

SPEAKER_01 42:56

I mean, and we I don't we we obviously can't go in enough to because you really can't see the fact of the work being fabric and and all the intrinsic detail. And I mean how how this is a bit of a stupid question, but it's sort of irrelevant, but it is painstaking work on your behalf, uh making these pieces.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

It's a bit crazy, I must admit. Um but it, you know, like a lot of artists say, like that meditative action and nature. Um I it there's something in it that there's no shortcuts, unfortunately. You kind of you have to commit. Um and it is a lot of of sitting and cutting, but it you become so linked to the material as well, which is an important part of the process. Uh and I'm just so grateful of the abundance of fabric that I had to like.

SPEAKER_01 43:52

You think it'd be a hoarder if you weren't an artist, Curry?

SPEAKER_00 43:56

Never got to. Um yeah, it's It's to so to be able to methodically go through those. And it goes back to those early days where I was I was pulling out um these links and now I pull them out. You know, sometimes it's purely because of color. Um uh and and and stuff. So yeah, I I you know trace the image up on on paper and then use tracing paper to to um you know do a leaf and then I'll transfer that onto the fabric and I'll cut that out. And um you need to glue it on. I need to do it as I go, or else I I I tried the to do the shortcut of, oh let's cut everything out and then glue it on, and then we just you get confused and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

Always have to measure twice and cut once.

SPEAKER_00 44:44

That's right. That's a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

I mean, and again in this show there wasn't there was an interactive component component, which uh does lead us to where I'm sitting now amid this beautiful work interior composition, wasn't there? But just for the about the interactive uh component, I mean I picked these three images from the upstairs of the show where conversations with Margaret Preston was downstairs, um well, it was part of the same show. There you had a this huge wall of cardboard of uh board works that you'd made, and the audience was invited to pick what was it a limit of three, or could you pick a three?

SPEAKER_00 45:28

I limited it just so you know no one could take all of them or something.

SPEAKER_01 45:32

I just yeah, and then you could take any three and mix them up and put them however you wanted.

SPEAKER_00 45:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

Uh, and then you sometimes replaced the works. But it was it was an audience collaboration. Well, I'm not collaboration, but you invited the interaction with the audience in that.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

Yes, yeah. Um, because uh Amanda, I like I never stop as an artist. Like I'm constantly working, um, but and it because it just brings me so much pleasure. But um, like all the offcuts, um, and I don't throw anything away too. I'm very, you know, it's it's it it's actually become more and more important to me that you know, within sustainability um and um our responsibility as ethical kind of beings on this planet. Um so I all the offcuts and the scraps, I might just sit down in front of um, you know, uh my my favorite murder mysteries in the evening.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

Uh and my little list of those later.

SPEAKER_00 46:32

Yeah, and um and just cut the little bits of fabric into shapes that I can make out of it. Um, and was utilizing them on these little these little canvas boards um as well, um, that that I think have all the integrity of the other work, but they just um, you know, on a on a very small scale, um an opportunity for me just to be quite creative, um to to to not have grand ideas, it's just great, absolutely. We lose play so often if we become too serious um or or purist about things, and and the opportunity to play is just so integral to my studio and my life and and having children around me, um, that you know that can can help and be involved and it it it's all part of the process. So it's it it means a lot to me to be able to introduce these kind of works into the bigger um conceptual spaces that it is just ideas, you know.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

Yes. Well, I I we uh before we do we we finish because we we're we are we're we could talk about we could talk for ages, but before we do finish, um I would like to talk about the work that we have installed here, interior composition. Again, it's such an ingenious piece, uh so seemingly simple and yet so inherently complex. And now I feel the question I have to ask is what murder mysteries were you're watching when you were making.

SPEAKER_00 48:05

I love um like Law and Order and Um The Crime Channel where you learn about serial killers.

SPEAKER_01 48:12

I don't know what serial artworks I mean.

SPEAKER_00 48:17

But I think what is great about kind of this opportunity that that you give artists, um particularly in a time of the pandemic, was that there were these moments where you have you're you're literally at a desk. Um you know, scale all of a sudden becomes very important. And I could push the Preston ideas into instead of replicating the works, I was actually cutting the vases out of um the fabric themselves. And I was using flowers that were in that were already part of um design. So I wasn't recreating the flowers, I was actually recreating the the interior motif in its own right. And when I started to think about the idea of the bathroom, um, and actually part of the Aboriginalia collection, you could um in the past buy um ceramic tiles with Aboriginal designs on them, um often motifs of men or hunters and stuff. So I thought this scale actually plays in beautifully with your idea of showing within a space like a bathroom. Yes. The idea of tiles um uh you know became really interesting for me. And I could, yeah, I was uh, you know, sitting at a on a very small space, but um uh thought, yeah, oh it'd be great. Uh yeah, and you can see the the the colour as well plays into that idea of interior design and and tiles and the way in which we decorate our spaces. So um for each for each work that has um an interior on it, there's an uh a work that sits beside it that is just purely painted with the the graphics. And I must have done a good job with the install.

SPEAKER_01 49:59

We've got to tweak it a little bit. We we we were under pressure with everything going on, but we have to tweak it a bit before you see it on Sunday. Um but it we were so so pleased. It was just so such so brilliant to walk into and to sit here. Um well I know I know it's not polite to um ask an artist who's just put out two major shows and and to what what you have coming up, but um maybe if I if I say I'll ask you two questions, I'll ask you, what are you looking forward to generally in 2022? And then I'm gonna ask the contrary question, what what causes you the most concern?

SPEAKER_00 50:46

2022. Well, March this month represents the re-emergence for me. Um, I've I've you know gone down that health route, I've had my boosters, um the my little boy I look after, the school started back, and there was that still that bit of tension with COVID about kids going back to school. Um so for me, it's it's allowing myself to be careful but re-emerge, to to enter back into a world which I've I've like all of us, you know, we've we've we've spent close to two years kind of in isolation, and and some people have already re-emerged and stuff, but this is this is my my I I made a very conscious decision that March that was going to be for me, and there's such exciting things, the Sydney Biennale, uh the the Indigenous Art Triennial in Canberra, uh Venice Biennale, you know, starting, I I I think just um the exciting thing for me is re-emerging and um being safe about it, but knowing that um whatever happens, happens. But I'm I'm yeah, I'm I'm very happy to be taking that step outside.

SPEAKER_01 51:58

I think we we feel exactly the same way. I've had my boosters. I'm leaving on Monday to go overseas for all of those shows for four months, having seen the Adelaide Biennale, the Sydney Biennale.

SPEAKER_00 52:10

Adelaide as well, yes.

SPEAKER_01 52:12

You know, see the Canberra Trionali when I get back. Well, well, I won't make you answer what you're worried about because we've sit we had too much of talking about what worries about it. Let's leave on the note of optimism. Umid working with you has been an absolute pleasure. And look forward to seeing you on Sunday.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

Me too. Thank you so much. It it yeah, I'm this work came out of this opportunity. It wouldn't have happened any other way. So um I'm very grateful for that. Thank you so much to you and your team, Amanda. It has been a wonderful experience.

SPEAKER_01 52:47

Great pleasure. And so to say good night, everyone. We'll be welcoming anyone here to see the work by appointment. And thanks very much to my colleague, Isabella Chow, for her part in making all of this happen. Everybody stay safe and try and stay dry until we can meet again. As I said, I'm off to Europe and the States on Monday, so I'll see anyone overseas or in August, but always in person, hopefully. Abianto.