the Painting Activist

20″ x 48″ oil on canvas, $1,200 ($50 donated to CASA).
Contact me for purchase.
See all paintings available for sale.

I started this painting (click here to see the image enlarged) while I was still in Oz, but just finished it yesterday at home. This part of downtown Brisbane is actually one of my favorite hot-spots in the city where you’re sure to find lively action anytime of the day or night. It’s called The Fortitude Valley, or just “the Valley” by locals. I was out wandering the sidewalks intentionally looking for an Aborigine. I knew that when I found one (which is considerably less likely than finding a minority in the American Midwest), chances were in my favor that it would be a photo opportunity for my next body of work focusing on social activism. Sure enough, I passed what looked to be a homeless Aboriginal woman, coin cup at her side, diligently painting a traditional Aboriginal design on a board. Tourists go bonkers over these earthy, narrative, pointillist-like designs. Plenty of white westerners passed the woman by; some (like the men in this painting) stopped to watch, while others whizzed past without missing a step. No one made eye contact. It was as if she were a sedate animal on display at a zoo, without the confines of a cage. I stopped to ask the woman if she would mind having her picture taken. Her response, consisting of a few mumbled words, a nod, and a quick but assertive gesture directing my attention to the coin cup, made it clear that she preferred to “work” this way.

I quickly learned during my first trip to Australia that Aborigines are not highly regarded citizens. They seem to dwell in the shadows (figuratively and literally), and oddly, neither Aboriginals nor their non-native counterparts seem not to mind. I tried to raise the issue with my Aussie friends on numerous occasions. There was not much to be said other than the fact that their race seems to be offered a multitude of opportunities in the way of scholarships and various programs to side step a predisposition to poverty and substance abuse. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that such efforts are proving to be terribly effective, largely due to a lack of interested people taking the offers. So what do you when no one seems motivated or interested? If nothing else, I wondered what this woman would have chosen to paint if she wasn’t certain her chances of selling the piece were substantially higher if a Causian walked by and thought, “Wow, a real dot painting by a real Aborigine. I bet that would look great over my sofa.”