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Heartland (page 1 of 3)

Julie's description of each of the 7 works comprising Heartland:

Climbing country, 2001

This art work physically consists of three long ropes each of about one inch diameter and 12 foot in length. I made them by hand twining handfuls of continuous strands of lomandra (a bulbous plant with long leaves ideal for creating string) and to complete this work each rope has large knots tied at even intervals along its strand. The knots suggest an intention to remember, they interrupt each rope in a rhythmic recall to something I have forgotten in this environment I now live. Installed in proximity these three ropes tell my wish to move beyond what is the physical realm to move out of the gallery, or other exhibiting space, and upwards and outwards to a greater understanding of my country, people, practices, culture from where I come.

Disturbed site, 2001

This work is a direct response to my time working at the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service during 2000 and 2001 during which time I learnt a great deal about the range of ways that people, publicly and privately, consider the land and waters. This painting presents an enlargement of a Aboriginal Site Index Card that the Heritage Section of the Parks and Wildlife Department complete to record each reported Aboriginal site. The categories on this card that require completion reflect inherent failures in the Tasmanian Government system to recognise that Aboriginal culture is ongoing and didn’t end in 1876 with the death of Truganini. The 1976 Aboriginal Relics act recognises as Aboriginal sites anything created or occupied by an Aboriginal person up to 1876.
This I find particularly disturbing.

Leeawuleena, 2001
Lake driftwood and eucalpyt wood
Variable dimensions
This work was created between two places. Leeawuleena (Lake St Clair) in Central Tasmania and Eddystone Point, North East Tasmania. This work is the result of staying at Leeawuleena in Central Tasmania with three Tasmanian Aboriginal artists who were creating fibre artwork during their residency program at the lake. I was drawn to the Lake shore and was most astonished by the water’s action of constantly washing up, casting out, these forms that strongly resembled the heads of ancient birds. Birds have always followed me, and seem to speak to me in unexpected locations. I gathered these silent, bonelike twigs and put a head to each body. Several were collected whole needing no Frankensteinian attentions of matching head with body. They became enlivened and surrounded the hut’s verandah wall where we stayed, they created shadow and watched us. It seemed they came through time, through the waters and decisions of the lake to wash them to near where we stayed. Something of the essence of how things were beyond my hands and yet came into my hands is the mystery or language of this work.
I have placed them walking or marching up a gum tree branch in procession as that is how they seemed to arrive into my peripheral vision as I walked the lake shore. They now march up and almost out of a gallery space, the log holds them in wax filled cavities, wax which dripped like bird droppings. These creature’s movement from floor to wall is suggestive of a further place, a world beneath the floor and after the wall – from where they emanate from and may disappear to. I do not think they are of this time, this world, but manifestations of another that briefly spoke to me.
Acquired NGV.

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