mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri Judy Watson

Judy Watson, Waanyi people, Australia b.1959 / moreton bay rivers, australian temperature chart, fresh mussels, net, spectrogram 2022 / Indigo dye, graphite, synthetic polymer paint, waxed linen thread and pastel on cotton / 247 x 488cm / Proposed for the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Collection / © Judy Watson/Copyright Agency / View full image
When
23 Mar – 11 Aug 2024
Where
Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery 4 & Watermall
Admission
Free
About
For more than four decades, Judy Watson has fashioned powerful, ethereal works of art channelling the stories of her family’s Waanyi Country in northern Queensland. ‘mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri: Judy Watson’ is a comprehensive survey of the renowned Queensland artist’s incisive meditations on colonial, social and ecological concerns.
The exhibition includes 130 works, across painting, prints, sculpture, installation and video, from an artistic practice centred on truth-telling around the environment, historical government policy affecting Indigenous Australians, and institutions that collect First Nations cultural material and remains.
The title ‘mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri’, translated as ‘tomorrow the tree grows stronger’, is taken from a poem in Waanyi language by the artist’s son Otis Carmichael.
Judy Watson, Waanyi people, Australia b.1959 / memory bones 2007 / Pigment and pastel on canvas / 211 x 127cm / The James C. Sourris AM Collection. Gift of James C. Sourris through the QAG Foundation 2010. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program/ Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Judy Watson/Copyright Agency / View full image
Judy Watson, Waanyi people, Australia b.1959 / grandmother's song 2007 / Pigment and pastel on canvas / 196 x 107cm / Purchased 2007 with funds from Margaret Greenidge through the QAG Foundation and the QAG Foundation Grant / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Judy Watson/Copyright Agency / View full image