FOREWORD

This 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions in , the fourth in the modern era after Chicago (1993), Cape Town (1999) and Barcelona (2004), would be incomplete without a quality art exhibition. This exhibition of fifteen works brings together some of the religious traditions that comprise multifaith . It begins in the mists of time with the recognition of the Aboriginal contribution to Australian religious art.

It is indicative of the neglect of the religious strand in the history of Australian art that in the recently published The Encyclopedia of Religion in Australia there is no entry on Australian religious art. In fact, the word art does not even make it into the index. Yet the strand is there, stifled by Australia’s Enlightenment secularism which is now on the wane in the emergence of multifaith Australia. It is often forgotten that one third of all paintings in the National Gallery in London are of religious subjects - the proportion would not be too different in Australian state galleries. This blind spot is remarkable.

This exhibition in a small way addresses this blind spot. All art in united in the sense that it is a manifestation of the human spirit; it allows us to address the universal questions through the intelligence of the heart. A Chinese proverb says, True beauty is eternal and cannot be destroyed. The journey of Australian art over the next century will be to incorporate the Buddhist, the Confucian, the Hindu and the Muslim, and perhaps the African, into the mainstream mosaic that is multicultural and interfaith Australia. This exhibition is one small step forward. Art is capable, often with a struggle, to move us beyond our family and cultural inheritance, beyond the prison of our own time and place.

There is another Chinese proverb, Opportunity is like catching the sun’s rays. This exhibition will help us catch those rays that gives life to this planet but whose warmth is in danger of destroying it. Each of these works is a shrine, uncovering events and ideas that matter.

The Parliament is especially indebted to the generosity of Dame Elizabeth Murdoch. This exhibition could not have occurred without the indefatigable Helen Summers whose commitment to interfaith and art is without parallel. She has been helped immeasurably by Rosemary Crumlin and Helen Light and the Parliament’s Art Committee. We owe them all a great debt.

Desmond Cahill (Prof), Melbourne Parliament Program Director. Introduction Between these walls lies the calm certainty of two Aboriginal traditional elders. Ginger Riley Munduwalawala and Eubena Nampitjin are secure about their place in life. Both know that they belong to a particular part ‘Art makes the intangible, tangible’ of the country where their spirit ancestors still dwell; both know that their spirit will return there at death to – Victor Majzner be reborn once more. Both are convinced that all they have to do is paint their story and we, who came here more than 40,000 years after them, will know that theirs is the centre of creation.

Michael Riley was an urban Aborigine of a different generation. He died too young. Death, black history and suffering are never far away for him. The bird wing against the hot blue sky smells of death as Riley stretches ‘Religious art is like the kiss of death for an artist. Dealers and galleries just don’t want to know you,’ out its wing to photograph it. Victor Majzner’s dove of peace is not dead but trapped; he places it in Noah’s the young artist said to me some years ago. And so it was, then. Australia and the art world were self- Ark by the fertile edges of the Sea of Galilee. It rests on a wedding ring. His symbolism is also multi-layered consciously secular. Unlike the USA, Australia was not founded on a religious dream. Nor was it on any but always subservient to the pictorial demands of his canvas. The work is political but calm and nonviolent. search for a nirvana. The first settlers were Caucasian, often ill-educated, sometimes convicts who, along with their minders, were serving out their term in a hot, hostile and inhospitable climate. They thought the Others have moved with both politics and contemplation. Their images too reward reflection for they speak country empty, belonging to nobody, and acted as if this were so. with a quiet voice. Fatima Killeen’s colleograph with its graceful Arabic calligraphy says ‘No to war’. Phillip George’s white surfboard is ready for the waves, its prayer of submission written underfoot – ‘Inshallah’ This exhibition is about a different Australia. Its artists are unafraid to speak aloud in these works about (God willing). The same calm underpins James Powditch’s Cathedral. He sticks on pages from the Odyssey their deepest concerns and their personal search for meaning. Although many come from Christian cultures, as he builds a self-portrait in the same way as 13th century architects built theirs. The shapes soar and they turn for inspiration to a variety of traditions and sacred writings, including those of Islam, Buddhism, balance each other in their verticality. They are buttressed with pages from a child’s storybook. Claudia Hinduism, Judaism, as well as of Christianity. Terstappen has a stranger’s (she came here late) understanding of the terror of the Australian bushfire. In her photographer’s hands it becomes metaphor and tool. Arthur Boyd, the elder of the artists represented here, was never afraid of public opinion. Over his lifetime he probed Australian myths and became himself a myth to others. His Half-Caste series (1950s) explored the Marianne Baillieu and Louise Rippert acknowledge a debt to ancient Hindu philosophy. Both works, so state of outback Aborigines, particularly those who stood between cultures because they were different of physically beautiful, are born in the soul and never stray far from the attention and hand of their makers. skin and colour. Over and over he returned to the Bible and its stories as a starting point for understanding Baillieu’s Prana Portrait 111 captures the rhythm and energy outside and within. Rippert’s Dance is an and revealing the Australian psyche. His Nebuchadnezzar series saw the king consumed by his greed for invitation to share in her wonder and contemplation in the face of all life. The serenity of Kim Hoa Tram’s gold; his many images of the Prodigal Son showed the father (his own father in his old chair) as he reached Zen Buddhist imagery and poetry reaches out to the viewer in similar ways. It too has a sense of both out his hand in tenderness to the prodigal. journey and arrival, and an awareness of the fragility or even the illusion behind the question in Buddhism ‘who am I?’. The bird is asking the question of its reflection – or is it the other way round? In one way Boyd, with his two Crucifixions, anchors this entire exhibition with its questions and expression of the spirit. They are relatively late works of the 1960s, when Boyd was to turn 50. Both Crucifixions stand in The youngest artist in the exhibition, Shoufay Derz, also asks this question. She builds a boat. The boat is the Shoalhaven. They are hardly distinguishable from the river and the hill behind. A woman crucified, a man not going anywhere that we know. It would sink in water. Derz doesn’t mind for she is interested in journeys crucified, a landscape suffering. which are cloaked in mystery. She seeks to know what her life will bring.

Echoes of Boyd’s insight can be seen across the exhibition. On the opposite wall is Euan Macleod’s reflection This is an exhibition to savour. Spirit within. on his relationship with his own father. (‘But I hope others will see themselves there.’) They are together in a little dinghy but distant from each other. Fathers and sons. Macleod does not turn to the sacred books but Rosemary Crumlin uses his life’s journey as his source.

02 03 ARTHUR BOYD Boyd loved the drama of the ARTHUR BOYD ‘I do not believe it is enough to say he Shoalhaven landscape. ‘Wagner’, represented us all’, Arthur Boyd said Crucifixion and Rose 1979 – 1980 he said, ‘could have been born here.’ Crucifixion Shoalhaven 1979 – 1980 in 1987. ‘I do not wish to separate the Oil on canvas The rose of England could never Oil on canvas idea of suffering by just allowing for 158.5 x 128.5 cm 189.5 x 182 cm Bundanon Trust Collection survive its ruggedness. Here the the male to be seen. There has been Bundanon Trust Collection English rose floats by the crucified an awakening of the potential and male figure nailed to a cross, which force of women in our time.’ It is the stands upright in the now calm, spare viewer who is challenged to cope with landscape. All is in drought, thirsty, the dislocation and confrontation of suffering. tradition.

04 05 MARIANNE BAILLIEU

Prana Portrait III 1998 Mixed media on plywood 240 x 120cm Collection of the artist

‘This work has the feeling of a human being – the form of a body held together by inner energy, not evil or bad but divine. Its title comes from the Sanskrit pra ana (breathing forth). The real gold sparkles with life’s energy, an energy which is around you as well as within you. Such energy, I believe, continues after death as spirit.’

Marianne Baillieu

SHOUFAY DERZ ‘Linking Back forms part of a series of work exploring notions of identity Linking Back (Dreamboat) 2003 and place, the search for connections Plywood and a sense of direction. The dream 320 x 130 x 130 cm Collection of the artist boat, incomplete and skeletal, is like a journey that never finishes. The intention of this work is to convey a feeling of mystery and wonder, to evoke contemplation, and to allude to a place beyond what appearances conceal.’

Shoufay Derz

06 07 PHILLIP GEORGE ‘Inshalla is an Arabic expression which FATIMA KILLEEN ‘The dove and olive branch, icons of translates as “God willing” – a saying peace, remind of the need for peace Inshalla (Arabic) Peace is in a Period of Struggle 2005 which punctuates daily conversation amid a culture of war and suffering. Fibreglass & carbon fibre with Colour collograph – edition 2 of 5 within the Islamic and Christian The writing represents an anti-war digital decal 72 x 87 cm worlds and is a humble, human 213 x 52 x 7 cm Collection of the artist sentiment, No to the war, in Arabic. Collection of the artist acknowledgement of destiny and The script is a Kufic style, originally place. The Inshalla (Arabic) surfboard developed in Kufa, Iraq. The city of celebrates the metaphysical art of Kufa was an intellectual centre dating Arabic, Ottaman and Persian worlds and back to the first Arab empire.’ the transcendental nature of surfing.’ Fatima Killeen Philip George

08 09 EUAN MACLEOD ‘It could be anyone in the dinghy. VICTOR MAJZNER ‘The scene is the present fertile I hope people see it as themselves. landscape by the Sea of Galilee. Trapped 2007 Two in Dinghy 2007 But is it also my story – My father at The dove of peace is there but it Oil on canvas Acrylic on canvas the back with the oars, me looking is imprisoned in its cage. Noah’s 137 x 180 cm 122 x 122 cm the other way. He was always keen on Ark is there, too. It rests on part of Private Collection Collection of the artist sailing; I never enjoyed it; it wasn’t an a wedding ring, the Jewish sign of area we could connect in. He died a betrothal. I hope the bird will be while before, with Alzheimer’s.’ let out soon.’

Euan Macleod Victor Majzner

10 11 EUBENA NAMPITJIN Witji is a rock hole (Tjukarra) along the Canning Stock Route in the Witji 2005 Western Desert. It is surrounded by Synthetic polymer paint on canvas other rock holes, Kinyu and Midjul, 150 x 180 cm Courtesy of Alcaston Gallery, and sacred sites. Sandhills dominate Melbourne the area. For those who know, this is a deeply symbolic painting. Eubena wis a custodian of this country, a healer, and the person responsible for women’s law ceremonies.

GINGER RILEY MUNDUWALAWALA Ginger Riley Mundawalawala was a senior man, holder of his mother’s Ngak, Ngak and the Four Arches 1990 story of the Limmen Bight in the Oil on canvas Northern Territory. Garimala, the 124 x 185 cm Courtesy of Alcaston Gallery, creator snakes, travelled from Arnhem Melbourne Land and live in a water hole which they created near the Four Arches. The sea eagle is Ngak Ngak, guardian of the country. The tree is the sacred liver tree. The deepest meaning of the story is secret.

12 13 MICHAEL RILEY This is part of Michael Riley’s Cloud series. It is one of 10 photographs of Untitled 2000 objects – including a feather, a cow, Colour pigmented print a boomerang, an open prayer book, 85 x 135 cm Courtesy Stills Gallery, and and this strangely still and silent The Michael Riley Foundation eagle hawk’s wing. The wing seems © Michael Riley/Licensed by to be extended in flight but it is VISCOPY 2009 stretched in death, photographed against the sky. Riley celebrates his people but hints at loss, death and pain.

CLAUDIA TERSTAPPEN ‘Mamukala 1 is part of a series exploring the characteristics of large Mamukala 1 Australia, 2003 bushfires that aims to give a sense Type C photograph of place and situation. It relates to 150 x 150 cm Courtesy of the artist, Galeria Palma important cultural, spiritual and 12 Barcelona and Conny Dietzschold, natural features of Australia. The Sydney work deals with shared experiences and expectations and tries to reflect their associated fears and values.’

Claudia Terstappen

14 15 JAMES POWDITCH

Cathedral 2009 Mixed media on plywood 141 x 70 cm Collection of the artist Courtesy Australian Galleries

The background is one of literature’s great journeys – the story of Odysseus and his 10 year struggle to get back to Ithaca. That is the first metaphor. The second is the film reel, symbol of Powditch’s lifelong fascination with movies. The third is Eric Newton’s History of Modern Architecture, which traces shifts of Western civilization into modernism. With these elements Powditch builds his cathedral, his place of centre, harmony and contemplation. LOUISE RIPPERT Move up close to Dance to see. ‘It is like looking through a microscope Dance 2005 (and detail) at the beginnings of a life. In the Collage incorporating glassine, nylon centre of each hydrangea leaf (from thread, hydrangea petals, gouache and aluminium gilt on drafting film my parents’ garden) is an eye. In the 105 x 100 cm centre of each eye is a fleck of white Private Collection blinking away (symbol for me of an internal awareness, like watching inside yourself). The process of the making is slow, contemplative, like an Eastern meditation. It can be tortuous; you have to be patient enough to believe in what you are working towards.’

Louise Rippert

16 17 Brief notes on the artists:

MARIANNE BAILLIEU (b. Stockholm to Danish parents; came to Australia in 1960s) The founder of Realities Gallery, Melbourne (1971), supporter of established artists, early exhibitor of indigenous works from Papunya, and adviser to young artists, Marianne Baillieu became a full-time artist after the sale of her Gallery. Her travels and studies led her to Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and to a trust in inner vision, that spiritual energy which shapes her way of working and her creation of an art that reaches into depths elusive to expression in other forms. Her quest in art and in life is for peace and nonviolence.

ARTHUR MERRIC BOYD (b. 1920 to Merrick Boyd, a potter, and Doris Gough, a painter; d. 1999) Arthur Boyd is one of the few artists in Australia to make an outstanding and consistent contribution to religious art, both through major biblical works (such as Nebuchadnezzar series 1966-69; Moses Leading the People 1947; The Prodigal Son 1948-49) and through works which are deeply humane and implicitly religious. The works in the present exhibition bring these 2 streams together. Like much of Boyd’s work they raise consciousness of what it is to be human and so to respect people, their stories, and the earth – particularly that of Australia. KIM HOA TRAM ‘In general we think, this is me, this is my body. But once the question, SHOUFAY DERZ (b. Sydney of Taiwanese and German parents) Who am I 2008 “Who am I?” is raised, it means ‘There are no precise answers; there are ways of looking at things.’ Shoufay Derz is a young artist with Ink on paper, Chinese scroll (horizontal) we begin to doubt the existence of enthusiasm for the Sufi poetry of Rumi, the sculptures of James Turrell and the work of artist Hossein 137 x 67 cm Valamanish (b. Iran). She sees her stance as that of ‘a journey towards spiritual mindedness’. Linking Back Private Collection ourselves and the things around us – are we real? Because our physical 2003 is a series of dream images exploring these aspects in photography (Curtain), sculpture (Dream boat) body will disappear one day, the and installation. so-called me or self will become nothing. So what is the real self? PHILLIP GEORGE (b. Bondi, Sydney) The real self is no self.’ Phillip George’s works are at once beautiful and political. His travels in the Middle East, his ancestry (his Greek Orthodox parents), his immersion in Australian beach culture, and his response to events such as Kim Hoa Tram September 11, 2001 and the ongoing conflict between Muslim and Christian extremists are significant influences on his work. In bringing Australian and Islamic images together, he signals not only his desire for peace but also Australia’s need to identify its role and responsibilities in a globalised world and to recognise and remedy its unwitting or politically expedient acquiescence in injustice.

18 19 FATIMA KILLEEN (b. Casablanca, Morocco; came to Australia in 1994) Fatima Killeen completed visual arts studies at the School of Fine Arts, Casablanca, the Corcoran School of Art, Washington (1988) and the Canberra School of Art, ANU (1997). Her paintings, prints, collographs and mixed media works mark her espousal of two cultures. Her use of Arabic calligraphy, Islamic design and Australian as well as Moroccan subjects exemplifies her respect for the strengths, beliefs and differences of diverse cultures and her yearning for mutual understanding, peace and justice.

EUAN MACLEOD (b. , 1956; arrived Australia in 1981) Euan Macleod’s work is deliberately indeterminate and ambiguous. It is also figurative and expressionist. These aspects place Macleod in the forefront of his generation of artists in Australia. Like artists such as Anselm Kiefer and Bill Viola, he uses the human figure as both story and metaphor. Much of Macleod’s recent work seeks its inspiration in the Australian wilderness but is also driven by the artist’s memories of his father and his father’s battle with Alzheimer’s. ‘We lost him before he died.’ Life as a spiritual journey into mystery underpins his painting. ‘I love it when I hit the flow – that’s wonderful.’

VICTOR MAJZNER (b. Russia, 1945; arrived Australia in 1959) During his artistic career, Victor Majzner has dealt with subjects ranging from issues of cultural exclusion, historical connections/divisions between indigenous and white colonial settlers, and the cultural landscape of Australia. Much of his mature work concerns a Jewish aesthetic within the wider Australian and Western world art. Most of his recent work is inspired by Jewish cultural and mystical ideas. ‘Without the Torah there would be no Judaism. The Torah makes temporal reality purposeful and the spiritual experience tangible, Art makes the intangible visible.’ (Victor Majzner)

EUBENA NAMPITJIN (b. in 1920s near Jupiter Well on the Canning Stock Route, Western Australia) Eubena Nampitjin saw her first white person when she was a young girl in the desert. She was shocked. Now she is the most famous and sought after Waylayirti artist in the remote community, Balgo. She is one of the few surviving speakers of Kukatja. Like other Balgo women she sees her life’s work as ‘growing up the children, growing up the country’. Her paintings speak of her major Dreaming stories (Tingara cycle; the Wati Kutjarri cycle), all of them sacred.

JAMES POWDITCH (b. Sydney; father Peter Powditch, an artist) Powditch brings to his mature works a passion for human justice, although he denies that he is overtly political or religious. His works (such as God is in the Detail 2005; The Emerald Forest 2007; Rabbit Proof Fence 2005) are intelligent and sharp-edged. ‘I enjoy it if people can find meaning or clues in my work. But most of all I’m driven to create beautiful things. I like to hope that people will respond in an emotional manner to the exhibited work.’ He sees below surfaces and is not afraid to take a position, be it political or religious.

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