Native Dog Swallows Julia Johnstone

watercolour and pencil on Arches paper 88 x 122cm (framed)

$9,000

In ‘Native Dog Swallows Julia Johnstone’, an imprecise Australian native fauna silhouette ‘swallows’ a colonial portrait to create a romantic antipodean anomaly. In this reimagined work I reference two historical images from early Australian artists through a naïve engagement, expressing a nostalgia for a somewhat fictional colonial wonderland. A loose impression of Richard Read Senior’s ‘Portrait of Julia Johnstone’ posed in an arcadian landscape / 1824 is captured within the crisp silhouette of a ‘Native Dog (dingo)’ by T.R. Browne / 1813. The profile of the dingo is sharp, controlled and disconnected from the surrounds. Contained within the silhouette, the landscape is tamed, a flower garden flourishes, a pup stares out and the young woman is outfitted in an azure gown unsuitable for the local climate. This is an incongruous early European vision of Australia, a physical imposition, transplanted.