Reconciliation Action Plan

Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Reconciliation Action Plan 19 Opposite : Danie Mellor , Ngadjonjii/Mamu and Anglo-Australian / The pleasure and vexation of history 2017 / The Taylor Family Collection. Purchased 2019 with funds from Paul, Sue and Kate Taylor through the QAGOMA Foundation / © Danie Mellor Danie Mellor with his work Landstory 2018 / Image courtesy: Andrew Curtis, 2018 Danie Mellor’s striking wax pastel drawing The pleasure and vexation of history 2017 depicts a scene reminiscent of a tropical paradise. The work explores the dichotomy of the ‘unspoilt paradise’ of colonial Australia and impending catastrophic world changes that ensued for Aboriginal peoples and societies. Mellor, a Queensland artist of Ngadjonjii/Mamu rainforest heritage, questions the representation of Aboriginal peoples in historical accounts by juxtaposing imagined utopias of colonial frontiers with looming dystopic realities faced by Indigenous peoples and cultures. Exhibitions QAGOMA has long been committed to exhibiting the work of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, in focused displays and in dialogue with works by other Australian and international artists. Gallery spaces at QAG and GOMA are dedicated to the exhibition of works by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, which also feature heavily in QAG’s Australian art galleries and in Collection displays across both sites. WE’VE PRESENTED 44 EXHIBITIONS OF INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIAN ART SINCE GOMA OPENED IN 2006 AND QAGOMAWAS FORMED 4 MAJOR CHILDREN’S ART CENTRE PROJECTS HAVE BEEN CREATED WITH ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER ARTISTS In 1990, QAG presented the landmark group exhibition ‘Balance 1990: Views, Vision, Influences’. Featuring contemporary works by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists working with non-Indigenous artists from both remote and urban areas, ‘Balance’ championed the influences shared by artists of all backgrounds and from all parts of Australia. The exhibition heralded a new way for the Gallery to present contemporary Australian art and became a model for QAGOMA’s current exhibition program. ‘Story Place: Indigenous Art of Cape York and the Rainforest’, Australia’s first major survey of historical and contemporary art by the peoples of the Cape York Peninsula, was staged in 2003. This groundbreaking exhibition also recognised the artworks’ non-material elements, including dance, oral history, philosophy, religion and ceremony, which form part of the art object. ‘Story Place’ generated significant recognition of the art and culture of this region of far north Queensland. More recent major group exhibitions include ‘Land, Sea and Sky: Contemporary Art of the Torres Strait Islands’ (2011) and ‘My Country, I Still Call Australia Home: Contemporary Art from Black Australia’ (2013). One of the most significant displays of contemporary art by Torres Strait Islander artists, ‘Land, Sea and Sky’ embraced both the cultural and practical importance of these natural entities to the communities of the Torres Strait in Queensland’s far north; while ‘My Country’ was the Gallery’s largest exhibition of contemporary art by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists to date, and examined history, contemporary politics, experiences and connections to place. ‘My Country’ also toured to Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki in 2014.