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Promiscuous Provenance, Anna Glynn Colonial Hybrid Reimagined from Raper – Gum-plant, & kangooroo of New-Holland 1789, 2017 Ink, watercolour and pencil on Arches paper 66 x 51 cm FOREWORD Anna Glynn has been a firm supporter of the Anna’s work has been described variously as ‘a Shoalhaven Regional Gallery since it opened in 2004. romantic and beautiful style’ (Zhang Tiejun, General Her exhibitions and commissions have always been Manager, Harmony Art and Culture, 2012), ‘derived well received and her increasing profile as an from a physical and mental excursion into the Australian artist of note has been a source of pride Australian landscape and its myths’ (Arthur Boyd, for many in the community. 1997) and ‘a pure and innovative realm through which When invited to view some of Anna’s new works people can understand nature and life’ (Wang Wuji, and asked to offer comment on the direction she was 2012). In Promiscuous Provenance, Anna has drawn on exploring in her pen and ink pieces, I was delighted to her wide ranging art practise and brought her sense of PROMISCUOUS PROVENANCE view two works that clearly referenced Australian humour and delicate touch to works that are colonial works. These pieces stood out both in the challenging, engaging and intellectually rigorous. detail and beauty of the work, but also for the care It is important that in modern Australia we stop at 4 that had been taken in the research and observation regular intervals and review our history. That we find 5 of the oddities of colonial interpretations of different ways to shine a light on the difficult and ugly Australian animals. As we discussed these works, a parts of our shared past and that we open common interest and fascination with colonial works conversations in new ways. Artists have a unique emerged, and the exhibition, Promiscuous Provenance, ability to engage an audience with challenging subject soon bore fruit. matters, and in Promiscuous Provenance, Anna has In working towards this exhibition, Anna has worked through many aspects of our colonial history. displayed her absolute dedication to a subject, viewing In her impeccable research, her outstanding artistic original works in collections across the globe and ability and the international viewpoint she brings to speaking to experts in fields as varied as botany, her creations, she asks many questions of her colonial interiors and colonial texts. We have spent audience, while also creating works that are playful, many hours delving into online collections and engaging and beautiful to view. marvelling at how odd some of the creatures we are so familiar with appear in these drawings. Anna has not BRONWYN COULSTON only captured the details of these colonial images, but Manager Shoalhaven Regional Gallery, Nowra in conjuring up tableaux and hybrid manifestations, she forces the viewer to an uncomfortable realisation that much of Australian art from the past two centuries has come from a European lens, a lens that tried to force a foreign aesthetic onto a landscape that didn’t fit the mould. The colour photographs of rock carvings used in this essay are part of the work of the Living Sites Survey Team and Les Bursill c1998. The black and white photographs are courtesy of the Sydney Prihistoy Group 1972. All images are used with CULTURAL COLLABORATION permission. I am an Aboriginal Archaeologist and Anthropologist. cliff faces at Bulli and around Bulli Pass. All places relatively good relations with the locals around the My work for the last 37 years has been in the research very familiar and where my people favoured camping. Tank Stream but that these relationships faltered and and discovery of traditional Aboriginal paintings, Getting images of animals and birds correct is eventually failed and Phillip was at a loss. I believe it drawings and engravings on and around campsites and essential for Aboriginal people. This aspect was of was acts such deforestation that would have severely rock shelters in the Illawarra and Shoalhaven regions. particular interest to me, knowing as I do the demand offended the locals. I first met Anna Glynn in 2017, when I was by elders for an absolute accuracy when capturing In another line drawing, Anna has used a black launching a book on the Illawarra pre colonisation animal behaviours in their art. Getting the key points swan as the hull of a Colonial vessel, sailing through and Anna was there. She discussed her work with me absolutely correct is essential in understanding the what appears to be Port Jackson. The black swan is a and I saw what I thought may be a confluence. We meaning of the drawing. known coloniser of wetlands, creeks and rivers. These arranged to meet again at my home to discuss what I PROMISCUOUS PROVENANCE areas are the most sought-after hunting, fishing and saw as a joining of ideas and cultures. general food gathering areas for my people. In my mind, the black swan vessel warns of the coming 6 art seeks to interpret European women and it appears disenfranchisement of the old people of this country. 7 to me that those Aboriginal people saw the clothing of An instance of birds carrying messages? the Europeans as part of their body. So in the Anna’s use of the original colonial images is Aboriginal representations the European women inspirational. I’ve always had a strong dislike for the often take on the appearance of kangaroos in dresses. colonial artists representations. Invariably kangaroos In Anna’s paintings a similar thing is is happening, look like either greyhounds or deer standing on their where Kangaroos are also depicted wearing colonial hind legs. Anna has repaired that damage and at the dress! So clearly I saw an absolute juxtaposition for same instance brought together colonial art and our work. Aboriginal perspectives. I also found a resonance with Anna’s use of native I feel that Anna has captured many elements of The colonisation of NSW occurred in the new animals and birds and her recognition of the colonial Australia. Her work highlights the unique elements of “Age of Enlightenment”. Surely then the newly artists limited knowledge of Australian fauna; the Australian bush and landforms. Her use of bird enlightened English gentlemen could have taken In my Masters thesis I looked at the types of particularly the complete misinterpretation of the life, the birds often appearing perched on the subject’s more time in getting their version closer to the fact. animals, birds and fish in traditional paintings and dingo, where the artist, no doubt working from Joseph shoulder also struck a chord with me. Aboriginal The late 1700s were the era of the new period of engravings. During that research I found a number of Banks’ descriptions, shows the dingo with distinct people recognise that birds are very often message science and nature, but the scientists of that day had depictions, mainly kangaroos, wallabies and fish. I fox-like attributes. bringers and perhaps the birds are bringing news of very shallow concepts of land management and also saw, occasionally engravings where European and In the painting of the fox/dingo, I was immediately the changes that will come with the new arrivals. sustainability and had far to go. Aboriginal peoples came together for the first time, drawn to the rock faces which to me were so In another painting, Anna has captured the and the Aboriginal people often conserved these reminiscent of areas of the Illawarra, particularly shocking disrespect the colonists had for the land. LES BURSILL OAM meetings in their drawing and engraving work. lower Hacking River, especially the parts of the South Her painting shows a land denuded of trees. Governor February 2018 There are several instances where the Aboriginal West Arm in Port Hacking. I was also reminded of the Arthur Phillip reported that initially there were PROMISCUOUS PROVENANCE 8 9 ABOVE RIGHT Antipodean Wonderland: Black Swan Colonial Vessel, “It is certainly a new world, Black Swan and 2017 a new creation. Every plant, Companions, 2017 Ink, watercolour and pencil Ink, watercolour and pencil on Arches paper every shell tree fish & animal, on Arches paper 66 x 102 cm 66 x 102 cm bird insect different from the old.” LETTER FROM THOMAS PALMER, 16 SEPTEMBER 1795 Shoalhaven Regional Gallery, Nowra 7 April to 2 June 2018 and Regional Tour ANNA GLYNN: PROMISCUOUS PROVENANCE This is a world of fantasia, a place on the cusp of illustrations of a waratah, a king parrot and reality and imagination, populated by bizarre grasshopper and places them in into a landscape that reimagined hybrid characters and featuring also features the visually dominant intervention of a strange natural history tableaux. It may chessboard (that refers to colonial floorcloths and the polarity between races black and white). The most reawaken a sense of wonder with our surrounding dramatic work is her panoramic photomontage in environment as we contemplate such a fiction chiffon, which createsEurotipodes with kangaroos and concerning this period of history. possums standing on islands in the sea, dressed in ANNA GLYNN colonial gowns but reading like Greek antiquities March 2018 PROMISCUOUS PROVENANCE from another ancient civilisation, while European imagery – a cow, church spire, and landscape – Australia’s ‘discovery’ by the Europeans was at the appears along the other edge of the fabric, upside 10 heart of a philosophical and scientific adventure in down. stories contained within the land is the thread that 11 the Age of Enlightenment. The Great South Land was In this work, Glynn has spent time in the archives unites her artwork across a range of media. In this imagined, embroidered, and envisioned long before with the early painters, writers, and artefacts such as exhibition she has created a lively reimagining of the its reality was experienced.
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