Contemporary Australia: Women

155 Mabel Daly, Judy Watson’s great‑grandmother Image courtesy: The artist Grace Isaacson, Judy Watson’s grandmother, under the Grape Trellis, Camooweal Street, Mt Isa Image courtesy: the artist Opposite salt in the wound (detail) 2009 Installation view, ‘Bad and Doubtful Debts’, Milani Gallery, 2009 Photograph: Carl Warner Courtesy: The artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane salt in the wound (detail) 2008 Installation view, ‘Shards’, South Australia School of Art Gallery, Adelaide, 2008 Photograph: Michal Kluvanek Courtesy: The artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane It wasn’t until Grace was working on May Downs Station and pregnant with her first child, Joyce, that she was finally able to see her mother again. In 1990, Grace accompanied Judy Watson, along with Watson’s parents and other family members, back to Riversleigh Station, Lilydale Springs and Lawn Hill Gorge. Grace’s nature was not to be bitter about the past, but to have a strong love of life and of her family. Included in the exhibition is Watson’s seminal painting grandmother’s song 2007, made after Grace’s passing in 2007. Her grandmother, who had a major impact on her life, was gone. Deeply personal and elusive, the painting resonates with an imbued grief, longing, and pride for a woman who played a pivotal role in Watson’s development as a person and artist. The painting features ghostly elements — outlines of Lawn Hill Gorge, a bailer shell, pulsating and energising whorls, grevillea lead and seed pod, and a spectral presence releasing her grandmother back to her Waanyi country. Somehow Judy Watson is able to turn a history of violation, deprivation and brutality into paintings, prints and installations of such beauty they almost belie their powerful political message. This is the true beauty of Judy Watson’s work. Her fluid elements draw viewers in, urging them to decipher these messages and markers of country, identity and history. Each time the viewer decodes Watson’s cultural maps they leave with an enhanced understanding of the true history of their ‘great’ nation. Bruce McLean and that this pain was not yet finished. What was to follow would continue to rub salt in the wounds of the survivors. 7 The second part of the story of the installation took place just a generation later, as the unofficial efforts of extermination turned to official policies of resettlement. Those who were not working for local cattle stations were moved to missionary settlements. Soon, assimilation policies were introduced that allowed the removal of half-caste children from their parents and for them to be re-educated to be ‘white‑like’ and serve lower roles among white society. Judy’s grandmother, Grace, and other children were hidden on a number of occasions by their mothers. Mrs Donaldson, the manager’s wife on Riversleigh Station, used to warn of impending police visits. On one occasion, Grace’s mother, Mabel Daly, took her, her brother Paddy and baby sister Daisy away from Riversleigh Station in the middle of the night to escape the police, and her own abusive situation. Grace was then sent to Morestone Station to begin work because ‘the manager’s wife wanted to teach a little girl to work and to have her there.’ 8 The names of the rivers, creeks and stations the family traversed or worked on are recorded on the walls of in our skin as a map of this important journey. When Mabel went to Morestone Station, Grace was being beaten by the manager’s wife for dropping a glass jug. Mabel called out: ‘Is that you Gracie?’ Grace’s little brother Paddy was also there with a bucket of bush berries for her. The manager’s wife came out and said, ‘That’s not your mother!’ to Grace, and, ‘That’s not your daughter!’ to Mabel. Grace recalled: ‘I can still see her face, poor old thing.’ Grace never saw her younger brother Paddy again — she heard he’d been taken as a gate-opener by a white man passing though the district. Judy Watson