The narratives that inform and, indeed, are inseparable from these works are shocking. They are still fresh, travelling down generations, the artists attuned. These are living histories, urgent and raw, tangible in the present – probing for response from sufferers and audience alike. The Great Australian Dream is not what it seems, Hetti Perkins writes. ‘It is, in reality, a nightmare, a shimmering mirage, a candle in the coming storm.’
40 pairs of blackfellows ears lawn hill station, Judy Watson, 2008 (TarraWarra Museum of Art)