Just completing a Bachelor of Arts a few days ago, Nowra artist Judith Reardon has landed her first solo exhibition at the Shoalhaven Regional Art Gallery.
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Titled 'Beneath Blue Skies: Small Failures of Vision and Moral Courage,' Judith explores a narrative of "coloniser denial" running through society.
A mixture of digital and traditional collaging, including some animated works, her body of work examine the structures of colonialism which "continue to deny Aboriginal people their rightful place in our shared history."
"It's a narrative body of work that tells a story of my idea of a pre-colonial world," she said.
"It's really related to our failure as a society, which is based on colonial institutions, and our inability to listen to the first people of this land, and how they cared for this land.
"And the result of that has been that we continue to make the same mistakes."
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Featuring a large animation piece that is projected onto a wall, Judith's work explores the way colonial artists captured a perspective of progression rather than invasion.
"The colonial artists actually captured the degradation without knowing what they were doing. The way they were seeing the world was through the perspective of progress," she said.
"The images in the animation and in the still works tell a story of colonisation, and how colonisation still impacts the world now.
"I've applied images through traditional collaging over the top, and have made it rough whereas the rest of the digital collage is structured.
"That part of it is to give the sense that we still don't really belong, we're not part of the land and are still a part of the problem."
Incorporating original historical images of her own family into her works, Judith aims to deconstruct and disrupt accepted ideas of national identity and allow audiences to think about "the truth of the hidden story of our history."
"When I started doing the artworks, I had a whole collection of family photos, and I thought there's a story behind each of these people's lives," said Judith.
"On the second part of my exhibition title which is small failures of vision and moral courage, it's about us as the little people who make decisions and choices that sometimes have very long term impacts.
"One of the colonial women that pops up into the animation has got my face on it. As an ancestor of colonisers, I started to think about what this meant to me and how my family might have contributed to the degradation of the land.
"There's an interesting piece that comes up in the animation by Arthur Streeton called The Creek from the 1930's, which is actually an image of erosion."
Beneath Blue Skies: Small Failures of Vision and Moral Courage will be showing at the Shoalhaven Regional Art Gallery until April 10.
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