Interpretation of archival material
Prior to the advent of the White Australia Policy, the ration of Chinese to European settlers has been as high as 10:1 in some parts of Australia. While there are some researchers dedicated to instating the contribution of this heterogenous group of settlers, they are primarily publishing their information using verbal media. As a visual artist, whose heritage represents the two principal communities, I am attempting to create visual content.
Portraits
Since the mid-2010s, I have been fortunate to collaborate with a number organisations to create portraits. This process was instigated with the National Portrait Gallery of Australia in Canberra and the Museum of Chinese Australian Heritage in Melbourne. This culminated in a feature in the group exhibition So Fine: Contemporary Women Artists Make History and a solo exhibition, Silhouettes and Shades: Papercut Portraits, in the respective institutions.
Each portrait contains a depiction of a floral emblem, to symbolise the birthplace of the subject. This is complemented by a papercut of an object representing their contribution to our burgeoning nation. These are fashioned using my interpretation of monochromatic Foshan styled papercutting. In some cases, no visual reference material was available from which a silhouette portrait might have been approximated.
While Foshan papercutting has been developing since the Song Dynasty, silhouettes emerged in England at the turn of the 18th century. It was a prevalent and affordable form of portraiture up until the advent of daguerreotype photography at the end of the 1830s. Journalist and author of The Art of The Silhouette, Desmond Coke, described them as ‘funeral things’.
In 2023-4, a series of papercuts were created to pay homage to the former residents of Ward 12 at the Dunwich Benevolent Asylum. Exhibited at the Redlands Art Gallery, they were created with the assistance of staff at the North Stradbroke Island Heritage Museum on Minjerribah. Operating between 1865 and 1946, the records offer an insight into the exploits of the settlers from China during the late 19th century. Around half of the Chinese residents specified their port of origin to be Amoy. Arriving as pastoral workers, the migrants from modern day Xiamen took up a diversity of professions at the completion of their contracts.
Illustrations
Concurrent to the portraits, I have been illustrating primary and secondary source accounts of events that occurred in the late 19th centuries. These include the existence of Chinese market gardens at Quart Pot Creek in Stanthorpe, a riot at Crocodile Creek, and a riot at Frog’s Hollow.
The latter composition responded to Raymond Evan’s interpretation of events that occurred 5 May 1888, and was exhibited at the Queensland State Archives.