For the past year, I've walked past an artwork in my foyer on a weekly basis, often admiring it and occasionally looking more closely at it. It's by Nici Cumpston and is a photograph that has been painted on, an image of the australian interior rivers. It reminds me of holidays and times spent inland with my husband-Broken Hill, Menindee, Griffith, Lake Mungo National Park and also of times further past, camping along the Grampians. But I never took the time to learn more about her and didn't click that she was also the curator of the Desert Art exhibition at the Art Gallery SA, which has now toured to WA.
But I did a little investigating and discovered that she had ties to Broken Hill (like my husband!), her father worked as a radiographer and hospital administrator across SA, NT and Canada and, best of all in my opinion, her brother was my favourite TV nurse on All Saints (now practising GP, father of 4, and apparently did a stint in an Aboriginal Medical Centre in Bourke). I really like her work and what has inspired her culturally over the years, the deepening knowledge of her indiginous family heritage and time spent along Murray Darling townships.
I loved the Desert Country exhibition, again it reminded me that some of the best things about Australian culture are the visual heritage from our indigenous culture and the idea of family being important and large. These are the precious things that we can learn from. It is so complex and sad to think of how these social fabric pieces are impacted upon by social problems (alcohol), the past (stolen generations) and the failure to pay a fair wage to the Aboriginal workers on farms and build and maintain an outback workforce. (There is so much more to this situation, but they were 3 things that came to mind recently.)
But I did a little investigating and discovered that she had ties to Broken Hill (like my husband!), her father worked as a radiographer and hospital administrator across SA, NT and Canada and, best of all in my opinion, her brother was my favourite TV nurse on All Saints (now practising GP, father of 4, and apparently did a stint in an Aboriginal Medical Centre in Bourke). I really like her work and what has inspired her culturally over the years, the deepening knowledge of her indiginous family heritage and time spent along Murray Darling townships.
I loved the Desert Country exhibition, again it reminded me that some of the best things about Australian culture are the visual heritage from our indigenous culture and the idea of family being important and large. These are the precious things that we can learn from. It is so complex and sad to think of how these social fabric pieces are impacted upon by social problems (alcohol), the past (stolen generations) and the failure to pay a fair wage to the Aboriginal workers on farms and build and maintain an outback workforce. (There is so much more to this situation, but they were 3 things that came to mind recently.)
Comments