Past work and its history

Title:

1991 Pidgeon (Jandamara) Series

Location:

The Perth Mint WA

Date:

1991

Description:

Major Exhibition of the works on Pidgeon, a real aboriginal hero who took the role of rebelling against the white folk in the Kimberleys in the early settlers history.

Donations made to the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

The Exhibition is an impression of the impact and sometimes the irony of the white settlers coming into the Kimberley with their sheep and cattle around the 1880's and their attempts to tame the land and 'the people'.

I have focused on the story of Jandamara later to be named "Pidgeon" because of his cheeky and charming personality. His tribe was the Bunuba which occupied the Napier, Oscar and Leopold ranges. White settlers moved in and took over the low-lands in the West Kimberley and began their battle with the elements. Their sheep and cattle grazed where the Bunuba once hunted. The Bunuba began spearing sheep for food. Their battle had also begun to protect their waterholes and sacred sites. It was a losing battle and many families took to working on the stations to provide 'hard tack' for their families. (basic food such as flour and meat)in exchange for labour. Thus Pidgeon came to station life and white man's world and ways. A keen learner and one of the best Aboriginal stockman in the district he had also learnt how to fight fire with fire. The story is of a constant clashing of cultures. Desperate attempts by both to hold onto all they believed in.

Pidgeon became a legend, a product of the two cultures overlaping into one confused being, whose final loyalty to his people took him to a white bullet ridden death.

The works began as an observation of the great contrast that lies in the driving force behind each culture. White Australians and Black Australians. But I found that the basis of each culture was in faith and physical endurance. The abrasive is the ownership; the power of man, the catalyst for war.