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Brown Sugar is a work based on the two-year journey of my ancestor, Woretemoeteyerner, who travelled from Bass Strait to mainland Australia and across to Rodriguez and Mauritius from 1825 - 1827. The elements of chance and fragmentation are integral to the work due to the information about the journey accidentally surviving within the vague diary musings of Quaker Missionaries, Backhouse and Walker who, in 1831, recorded that 'She spoke a little French.… Having been to the Isle of France'. Further archival research revealed a little more; including that Mauritius provides Australia with sugar to this day: once all types - today only demerara. 'Brown Sugar' has been utilised as a descriptive term for Black women throughout White history. The Trouble with Rolf developed from the fourth verse of "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport", the popular song by Rolf Harris (1966). This verse apparently refers to a dying (white) pastoralist's last words; his will and testament whereby he is giving away his 'property'. He mutters: 'Let me Abo's go loose, Lew, let me Abo's go loose....They're of no further use, Lew, so let me Abo's go loose, Altogether now...' My aim in utilising the song and 'found' Aboriginalia (kitsch plaster wall ornament of an Aboriginal stockman) which I then reproduced in multiple, is to reclaim representations of Aboriginal people for ourselves. |
 Brown Sugar, 1995/6 Acrylic paint on ply, mixed media, 180 x 300 x 12 cm photograph courtesy the artist
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