Summary

This item is one of our 50 Treasures: Celebrating 50 years of James Cook University.

Marg Naylor answers the question 'Why is this significant?'

The James Cook University Art Collection contains a number of significant artists who have made important contributions to Australian art. The young artist Judy Watson presented a print in the Townsville Pacific Festival in 1982 where it was successful in gaining the Martin Gallery Print Prize.

Discussions between the then Curator of the Art Collection, Ron Kenny, with the Director of the Martin Gallery, saw the work burning ghosts donated to the university. The work itself is a result of Judy Watson's exposure to American literature, which she was studying as an elective for her Diploma of Creative Arts at the Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education in 1979.

According to Watson, this 'elective was what led me into looking at my own cultural history and want to make work about my Aboriginality and my identity as a woman. It was a huge influence on my work and on my life'.

The work itself is a repertoire piece combining etching, aquatint, collagraph and screen printing, demonstrating fluency across a range of techniques in a highly accomplished composition. Beneath the vibrant red colour and the orange brushstroke effects there are three major images embedded within the picture plane. The first is a small photographic etching of a group of figures with fracture lines created from the five segments of plate used to complete the image. The darker image in the centre of the composition is a screen print of American settlers¹, including the young girl, in covered wagons seeking out opportunities on the frontier. The large image at the base of the composition is a grainy negative of the 1974 photographic image by Leni Riefenstahl of Nubian people in Africa, drawing the viewer into a reflection of the plight of Indigenous people within a 'settler paradigm'.

burning ghosts was exhibited at the time Watson was completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree at the University of Tasmania and highlights the emergence of a stronger interest in dealing with cultural matters, particularly in mind of her north-western Queensland origins. Watson's later work explores her Aboriginal roots, in particular a sense of belonging to country by creating forms of map-like compositions acknowledging her great-grandmother's country in north-west Queensland.

Judy Watson has continued to produce quality work throughout her career, representing Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1997, and in 2005 she was also responsible for a major work at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris.