So my background is as a print-maker but equally drawing is probably one of the most integral
parts of my practice
I'm interested in cultural memory tied to place and so I'll sometimes use objects within work
I really like the idea of people working together
Your hands are busy doing something
You're looking down, you're not looking at each other
Communication gets shared
Certainly my mum and my grandmother have inspired me a lot
I've got both aboriginal through mum's side of the family and I've also got my father's
side, non-aboriginal heritage, but I think it's something I've always been interested in
This is my mother Joyce and my cousin Dot Watson doing some sowing for me
My stitching will be so good I'm going to rub out Judy's marks behind it
Judy's a strong one and she's made me be more outspoken
A lot of years I've gone along blithely and it's very good to have that but also to be
aware and outspoken if you feel it needs to be said
Say it about what's going on in the country
It's not enough, it's swept under the carpet all the time
All Queensland aboriginal people were documented so we've got masses of papers in the archives
which we can...
As artists, it's a great resource, but it's also a heavy burden, to read how my grandmother
and her mother were treated
And then we've got the oral histories of our family as well
The title [a preponderance of aboriginal blood] comes from a quote which is in some documents
that I found in the state archives
This one here, it says 'identification number'
Their 'breed'
You know, 'breed'
'Full-blood, half-caste, quadroon'
Sometimes it used to say, instead of 'half-caste' it said 'half-blood'
After looking at this I thought, I need to see my own family's files and I was the first
person from my direct family to see them
As soon as you start channelling who you are into your work, into your artwork, you
will have more inner strength and be able to deal with adversity
It's not the only thing you will need to do but it's something
Artists are strange creatures
We're not defined by institutions
We're not pigeon-holed in the same way
I would say we've all got obsessive compulsive disorders and that's why we do what we do
We have that passion to follow through in terms of working with chaos, working with
issues within the environment, racial issues, which I look at a lot
These ones here are getting this sort of texture by trampling nets and things that I get from
rivers, garbage
And I'll place it on works and work on two at a time
So I wet them down and then dance on them and then push the netting in and then come
back over later with overlays in paint
When it comes to prints I know how to keep everything pristine and well-registered
So then when it comes to this it's like going beyond the boundaries of what you can see
past the blinkers of restrictions into another space
And if I don't like it then I just wash it all off and start again
I do a lot of projection of things too
So for example here I'm using food carrying bags and then I will project them and then
sometimes work with the painted projection
I love shadows
I love working with the shadows in everything
There are so many issues around Australia that we have to make a stand for and so there's
many artists making work in protest and I think that's what you can do as an artist
You can stand up
You can resist
And you can use art as a platform to discuss ideas