Suburban love and labour at heart of Julie Dowling’s new exhibition
Kuljak Djilba: Black Swan in September
31 July to 21 August 2010
The heart of Julie Dowling’s latest solo exhibition entitled Kuljak Djilba: Black Swan in September is the way Aboriginal people helped build urban suburbs.
Using oral histories from Noongar people and researching archives, Dowling depicts the lives of families in Maddington, the suburb where she and her family have lived for 10 years. Like many other semi-rural locations in Australia, these Aboriginal families worked from early colonial times in orchards, poultry farms, dairies and cleared land for settlement. It could be said that they built the prosperity of these places and yet, their descendants experience social disadvantage. This new body of work by Dowling celebrates the strength and beauty of Aboriginal people as they loved and worked in our cities.
Julie Dowling has exhibited widely in both Australia and overseas. She has been a finalist in many art awards including the Telstra, Archibald, Blake, Portia Geach, Raka, Premier of QLD National Art Award in New Media and the University of QL National Artists’ Self Portrait Prize Her work was included in Culture Warriors, the First National Indigenous Art Award. In 2007 a survey show entitled Strange Fruit Testimony and Memory in Julie Dowling’s portraits was shown at the Ian Potter Museum of Art.
Kuljak Djilba : Black Swan in September runs from 31 July to 21 August 2010 at Brigitte Braun Gallery 4 White Street Windsor. Gallery hours are Wednesday “ Saturday 1-4pm and by appointment.
For more information please call Brigitte Braun on 03 95212324or 0417184260.The exhibition can be seen on www.artplace.com.au from 21 July.
