Deanne Gilson
Karrap Karrap Beenyak - Flower BasketS OF KNOWLEDGE
4 November - 16 December 2023
In Karrap Karrap Beenyak — Flower Baskets of Knowledge, Deanne Gilson depicts dilly bags and baskets drawn from the South Eastern collection of artefacts held within the Melbourne Museum, and gifts from family and friends. They reclaim cultural knowledge, mixing tradition with the lived experiences of her ancestors and re-enriching her life with culture, Country and connection, through the creation of new art. The works highlight the use of Indigenous plants for healing and bush foods, and the Wadawurrung Creation Story and connection to Dja (Country).
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Dr Deanne Gilson is a proud Wadawurrung woman and an award-winning visual artist living and creating from her ancestral home of Ballarat in Victoria. Her multidisciplinary art practice interrogates the colonial disruption of her family and explores ways in which contemporary art can create a platform towards healing, acceptance and reclaiming cultural identity, often drawing upon traditional knowledges of her ancestors.
The Victorian bush where Gilson grew up features predominantly in all of her paintings, alongside many Indigenous plants, trees and birds from her Creation Story. Gilson draws upon layers of tangible and intangible knowledge, she talks about the presence of the intangible as spiritual connections to Country and her ancestors, while the tangible knowledge reflects artefacts and other objects of daily Wadawurrung life. Her works portray a rich cultural history that continues to thrive and grow today despite the restrictions placed on her family by settlement.
Gilson’s practice defines Aboriginal women’s business past and present through contemporary art. Traditional marks alongside contemporary marks, link her to the practices of Indigenous mark-making, especially that on her body when in ceremony. Stating that “all of my artworks are an extension of my women’s business and draw on ochre sourced from Wadawurrung Dja (Country)”. The white is used in traditional ceremonies, while the charcoal is a direct link to Gilson’s matriarchal line of her mother’s business. Gilson’s mother, Marlene Gilson, also an artist, gathers charcoal from her daily fire, passing this onto her daughter, extending upon the old and the new ways of sharing knowledge and connection to Country.
Gilson holds a PhD from Deakin University. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections including the National Gallery of Victoria, the Koorie Heritage Trust, the National Wool Museum, Deakin University, Bundoora Homestead, Monash University, Federation University, Australian Catholic University, University of Melbourne, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Shepparton Art Museum, the National Trust, Trinity College, and Ballarat Grammar.
DR DEANNE GILSON ARTIST TALK
2pm Saturday 4 November
To celebrate the opening of Deanne Gilson: Karrap Karrap Beenyak - Flower Baskets of Knowledge, please join us from 1.30pm for a 2pm artist talk on Saturday 4 November.
Free, refreshments provided
Full Moon Ceremony - Kunuwarra, Ba-gurrk Murrup, (Women’s Spirit, Dance of the Black Swan), 2023
silver leaf, acrylic, white ceremonial ochre sourced from Wadawurrung Dja, on canvas
110 x 90 cm
“Perhaps at no time in Australian history has the issue of “voice” been more salient. The French philosopher Michel Foucault once posed the question (after Samuel Beckett): “What does it matter who is speaking?” (Foucault,1998: 2006). Deanne Gilson’s exhibition, Karrap Karrap Beenyak – Flower Baskets of Knowledge demonstrates precisely why it matters. In this exhibition we are witness to a rich conversation between Gilson’s paintings and the work of Margaret Preston. However, while the exhibition references and acknowledges Margaret Preston, it also operates as a critique and resistance to underlying assumptions of colonial art in Australia, and in particular, the discourses upon which Preston’s work is founded.”
Ba-gurrk Yaluk Beenyak (Women sitting under the night sky and making camp by the river), 2023
22 karat gold leaf, acrylic, charcoal on canvas
50 x 180 cm
“With their baskets full, ready to prepare a meal for their family, the women share stories and go about their daily routines, under the night sky. The Southern Cross and Emu Constellation depict time and the changing seasons on Dja. An eel is caught in a hand-woven trap, made from flax and other grasses. Wattle seed is added to flavour food and crushed similarly to kangaroo grass to make dampers. The murnong daisy tuber is crushed, or roasted whole to eat. The kangaroo apple is eaten ripe and the Bogong moth was also eaten for a source of protein. The season is entering what we call Spring in Western culture, just past the cool season, wattle is flowering and the banksias are at their end. Birds are mating and the eels are hatching. Evidence we were here first.”
Before Joseph Banks, Our Baskets and Plants Held Sacred Knowledge, Hakea – Pin Cushion, 2023
22 karat gold leaf, acrylic, charcoal on canvas, framed in black sustainable Vic ash
40 x 30 cm
Before Joseph Banks, Our Baskets and Plants Held Sacred Knowledge, Ngarri – She-oak Tree, Protector of Children, 2023
22 karat gold leaf, acrylic, charcoal on canvas, framed in black sustainable Vic ash
40 x 30 cm
“There is extensive use of charcoal in Gilson’s making of the series of smaller works in this exhibition and its use is significant in many respects. Firstly, the charcoal, is collected from her mother’s fire at home and is brought to her, almost daily by her father. This instantiates a strong connection to her family, ancestors and Dja, the Country from which the wood was sourced. In Aboriginal cosmology, all entities including those from the metaphysical realm are interrelated; past present and future are contemporaneous. Gilson concurs with the belief that ensuring a harmonious relationship between human and non-human entities through cultural practices is fundamental to Indigenous notions of spirituality and she strives to convey this in her choice of materials and mode of making.”
INSTALLATION VIEWS
Photographs by Tim Gresham
EXHIBITED WORKS
Photographs by Andrew Wilson
