mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri: Judy Watson

CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE LEFT Mabel Daley (Watson's great- grandmother), Mavis Pledger (Joyce Watson's cousin) and her son, David; Judy and Grace Isaacson, Mount Isa c.1993; (standing) Lila Page, Keith Isaacson Senior, Mavis Pledger, (seated) Rhonda Morgan, Donny (Jack) Daley, Grace Isaacson, Mount Isa; (second from left) Mabel Daley (camp cook), Oben Station OPPOSITE water, light, reeds (wanami, mabibarr, bulinja) 2019 The installation salt in the wound and painting water, light, reeds (wanami, mabibarr, bulinja) 2019, depict two distinctly different perspectives of this henious act against a child. The former is a symbolic installation using materials as signifiers, the latter a hauntingly beautiful painting shown from an underwater perspective, depicting the glimmer of sun on the water's surface and visual noise occurring above ground; an underrepresented approach to landscape painting that the artist references as 'yukioui' — the idea of 'above and below'. Recently, Watson has used the profile of family members in monumental paintings. These realistic depictions aim to capture the essence of the sitter as well as their likeness, and are akin to historic Renaissance portraits, the profile of a bronze bust, or, more commonly, depictions of the monarchy on Australian currency. In joyce with queensland tenure map 2021; rani with freshwater mussel shells (malu malu) and hoop pine 2021; judy with global land, ocean temperature anomalies, baler shell and leaves (jamba, malu, yimbira) 2021; and lisa with territory map, boomerangs from lawn hill, burketown and the gulf, and kangaroo grass (jukuli, boodjamulla, munkubayi, badakalinya kanba) 2021, Watson has embedded her family into their homelands, capturing a moment in time for the family who, like many other Indigenous people today, are now in a position to have agency over their own lives and how their legacy will be recorded for future generations, rather than in the form of documents created by the Department of Native Affairs and letters from the Chief Protector of Aborigines, as documented in her artist book under the act 2007. 50