mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri: Judy Watson

THEMATICS Four major themes emerge from Watson's four decades of artistic practice; however, they are in no way definitive or mutually exclusive. Notions of identity, the environment, the archive (galleries, museums, archives and libraries) and feminism reverberate through time and are revisited. Throughout these overarching themes, more nuanced depictions become visible. In particular, mapping (charts, topography, architectural plans, contamination/global warming data); repeating motifs (dillybags or vessels, particularly their synergy with the womb and female pubis area); marks and forms (opaque white circles, shells, string, ghostly figures and apparitions); and pigments (blue, according to Watson, is 'the colour of memory', characterised by natural indigo dyes and ultramarine; and red, with hints of ochre, is the colour of earth). On her choice of pigments, Watson recalls: There's an interesting history with indigo in terms of slavery and resources and the making of indigo as a colonial cash crop. It's like ochre. You find ochre throughout the world, as Ernst Wreschner says, 'It's the red thread of history'. Indigo and ochre were both traded throughout the world. 12 'mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri: Judy Watson' plots the artist's 40 years of practice through thematics rather than a chronology, allowing viewers to bear witness to these recurring threads. There's an interesting history with indigo in terms of slavery and resources and the making of indigo as a colonial cash crop. It's like ochre. You find ochre throughout the world, as Ernst Wreschner says, 'It's the red thread of history'. Indigo and ochre were both traded throughout the world. — JUDY WATSON grandmother's song (detail) 2007 PP.48–9 Dyeing indigo at Adele Outteridge's studio, West End, Brisbane 2023 identity | running water people Identity is a key thread that runs through almost all of Watson's works, not only because of her viewpoint and positioning as an Aboriginal woman, but also because her research-driven practice delves into family stories and horrors. The strength of her family matriarchs is a constant theme; great-great-grandmother Rosie, great-grandmother Mabel Daley, grandmother Grace Isaacson, mother Joyce Watson and now Judy. In the artist's words: My great-great-grandmother Rosie and this other young girl hid when there was a massacre of Aboriginal people by the police happening at Lawn Hill Station. Rosie and the other girl were under the water, holding their bodies down with stones on their bellies and breathing through reeds to evade the police. 13 When Rosie escaped from the massacre, she was bayoneted. She carried the resulting wound on the upper part of her body for the rest of her life. Watson says: When I made salt in the wound in 2008/09, it was very much that shape. It is the open wound with the salt in it, which comes down through generations. A trans-generational trauma throughout history and our families. There are other tragical stories which my nan used to tell me, very traumatic for a little kid. Stories about people with incredible lives. 14 47