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Four works by Melbourne based artist Mia Boe are currently featured in the Alumni Friends of UQ Collection Study Room, where students, staff and researchers can visit to see the works up close and draw on them for teaching and learning.
Boe is a descendent of the Butchulla peoples of K’gari (Fraser island) and much of her artistic practice focuses on responding to settler-colonial violence and displacement. These works are particularly concerned with transgenerational trauma and ongoing police brutality toward Indigenous people.
Through research into her ancestry and family history, Boe discovered that her great-great-grand uncle Wonamutta (Jack Noble) was an Aboriginal trooper. The Aboriginal troopers were part of the Queensland Native Police (1848-1905) and were forced by colonial officers to enact violence against their own people. As well as his postings around Queensland, Wonamutta was seconded to the Victorian Police, where he was involved in tracking down Ned Kelly.
Boe’s paintings weave these personal autobiographical details with references to Sidney Nolan’s historical paintings of Ned Kelly and Eliza Fraser. These key figures both have ties to Boe’s family history: Ned Kelly through the story of Wonamutta and Eliza Fraser through the European renaming of K’gari to Fraser Island after her.
The work titled Mia and Sidney Nolan (cultural excursionist) (2021) presents a self portrait of the artist with the figure of Nolan, who stands as a symbol of the Western art historical canon. Boe is critiquing the credibility of Nolan's cultural and historical observations which led to false and damaging portrayals of the Indigenous people of K’gari.
We are spirits in levity (2021) once again presents Nolan who is painting on a canvas, facing towards the silhouettes of Boe’s ancestors. The iconic figure of Nolan’s Ned Kelly is buried in the background with a cross.
The work Fire plays eyes to the blind (2021) depicts Nolan, Eliza Fraser, Boe, and Wonamutta seated at a table reminiscent of Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. A silhouetted ancestral figure places their arms around Boe and Wonamutta, connecting them across time and space.
Finally, The Rainbow Experience (2021) presents Wonamutta dressed half in trooper uniform and blindfolded to emphasise how the troopers were forced into the violent acts they committed.
These works are currently on display in The Alumni Friends of UQ Collection Study Room, which is a dedicated teaching and learning space within the Art Museum. Teaching staff and researchers can book to use the space and bring their classes or view artworks up close. Learn about how this space can be used and which artworks are currently on display.
