Potter Gallery First Nations exhibition: 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art

 

The Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne has had a large extension and renovation over the past few years.  To celebrate it's reopening, its first exhibition in this new space is an exhibition of First Nations art that goes by the name of "65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art".   The title does not mention Indigenous people but, given that Australia was invaded by the British only less than 250 years ago,  to frame Australian history as being 65,000 years illustrates how the colonisers are only a small part of the country's rich culture.  It also places First Nations people at the centre of Australian history since colonisation.

The extensive exhibition, 10 years in the making, is curated by Distinguished Professor Marcia Langton, Senior Curator Judith Ryan, and Associate Curator Shanysa McConville.   Marcia Langton was the first Indigenous professor at the University of Melbourne and coincidentally was there on both my visits (one visit was not enough) and I would have loved to have congratulated her on the achievement if she had not been busy talking to other people.  The gorgeous colourful design, the thoughtful text, the helpful staff and the selection of artwork give a great insight into Aboriginal history and the diversity of First Nations art styles in Australia.  

I have written up this overview, with my best intentions to be respectful as a non-Indigenous person.  I loved the exhibition so much but must note that what I am sharing here is by no means comprehensive.  Over 400 works of art can be viewed in this exhibition with rooms on three levels.  It is a lot and yet not enough to represent all of Australia's First Nations.  The exhibition is intense and joyful and spiritual and thoughtful and painful.  It covers distressing issues such as colonisation, massacres, stolen generations and Aboriginal deaths in custody.  Yet it also a wonderful celebration of the richness of Indigenous culture and creativity.

Art of Victoria and Lutruwita (Tasmania), Ground floor:

This room of 19th Century artworks and modern pieces reflecting on first contact give an insight into this brutal period of colonial history,  

 

This wall displays the diversity in this room with portraits and other illustrations by European artists, small artworks by Indigenous artists and historic artifacts.  These are images traditionally associated with the history of the Aboriginal people in South East Australia.  

As with Australian post-colonisation history, the European perspective (in the large paintings) stands out but if we look we will see the Indigenous perspective.  The top left artwork is Corroboree (1890), an ink drawing by Tommy McRae, an Indigenous artist of the Kwat Kwat people from north-eastern Victoria.  It shows a line of Wathaurong men performing a ceremonial dance, with one white-skinned, hat-wearing man who is thought to be William Buckley, an escaped convict who lived among Indigenous Australians from 1803 to 1855.  The ship in the background is perhaps the Calcutta from which Buckley escaped.

This painting, Tunnerminerwait and Maulboyheenner by Marlene Gilson is from 2015, memorialises the first public hanging in Melbourne of two Palawa 'outlaws, Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner for killing two whalers.  The textbook below the painting belonged to Irish born Redmond Barry, inaugural Chancellor of the University of Melbourne and judge.  He had written notes here as he questioned both the reliability of the evidence and the legal basis of British authority over the Aboriginal defendants who weren't citizens.  

The hanging of the two men on 20 January 1842 was held on what is now the corner of Bowen and Franklin streets in front of 5,000 people.  This part of the painting shows the different sections of society watching: soldiers, colonists and Aboriginal people.  What was going through their minds?

First Encounter and Responses, Ground floor:

This room has artwork that re-interprets traditional first contact images from an Indigenous viewpoint.  The above The Island VI from The Island series by Brook Andrew has red painted layers in 2008 over a photo in the mid-19th Century.  

Opposite this are sculptures by Lin Onus called Taking the Children Away, 1992.  Seeing these broke my heart with the grey harshness of the European official and the drooping defeated sorrowful posture of the young Aboriginal child who has been wrenched form family and culture as depicted by the rich colours.  The stolen generations history is shameful when we look at the amount of hurt, broken relationships and loss of culture it has caused in many Aboriginal families.

Drawings by inmates of the Fannie Bay Gaol were hailed as the 'Dawn of Art' when they were displayed in the 1888-89 Melbourne Centennial Exhibition. This was the first time that works by Indigenous artists were exhibited and acknowledged as art in Australia.  This artwork above from the exhibition has the following text under the title: "Original Sketches and Drawings by Aboriginal Natives of the Northern Territory of South Australia, executed without the aid of a master. Exhibited by J. G. Knight, Deputy Sheriff, Palmerston, NT." This way of describing their art says a lot about the way these artists were seen.

Celebration of Women Artists in stairwell:

 

This fibre art display includes baskets, string bags, fish traps and ŋanmarra mats from across Arnhem Land and woven eel traps and rusted metal narrbong (bush bags) from South East Australia.

The website says "These contemporary works of art are at the forefront of the exhibition, in acknowledgement of the importance and continuity of women’s intergenerational cultural knowledge."  I read that Marcia Langton noticed that there were no artworks by women in the University's collection so the curators commissioned works to include.  I am not clear if these were among these commissioned works but they are a great contribution to the exhibition.

Art of Central and Western Dessert, First Floor:

This gallery showcases the linear designs and dot paintings developed at Papunya in 1971–72.  Traditional designs that were drawn on the ground, bodies and artefacts were transferred onto board and canvas.  The layers of dots were used to camouflage sensitive images.   This was the foundation of the Western Desert art movement.  I wish I had taken more time in this room but there is so much to see.

Art of Arnhem Land: First Floor 

 

I loved this gallery of the earthy ochre bark paintings against the striking green walls.  The painting are from the Yolnu people in Arnhem Land at the top end of the Northern Territory.  The paintings with their cross hatching and x-ray styles are very different to the dot painting of the Western Desert artworks.

Many of the painting were collected by anthropologists in the early to mid 20th Century, including the significant ethnographic art collection of Donald Thomson collected between 1935-1942.

 

Above are bark paintings of the ancestral spirits and spirit figures that were commissioned from 1912 onward by Baldwin Spencer (then professor of biology at The University of Melbourne) and Paddy Cahill in exchange for sticks of tobacco.  It is notable that these non-Indigenous collectors did not record the names of the Indigenous artists.

The First Nations experience of first contact with the British colonisers happened so much later than in the North than in the South East of Australia.  Compare this art with that in the Art of Victoria and Lutruwita room where so much culture had already being taken from Indigenous people by the mid 19th Century that much of the remaining artistic representations from that time are by European artists

At the end of the Arnhem Land room was a display of 21st Century art.  The modern bright blues and pinks are so different to the traditional earthy brown and white pigments.  The large blue picture is "Welcoming the refugees / Scott Morrison and the treasure 2020-2021" by Dhambit Munungurr.  It shows her Djapu clan welcoming the refugees who came across the water with escorts and ceremony, while the depiction of the politicians is Yolnu pushing them out to sea in a canoe!

Art of Groote Eylandt, First Floor

 

The artworks here, from an island off the coast of the Northern Territory, were collected in the 1940s by a curator of anthropological collections at the University of Melbourne.  Many of their paintings are on a black background and range from traditional animals to the ships of first contact.

"A new Australia flag" was painted in 1969 by Liwukaŋ Bukulatjpi.  He was the brother of David Burrumarra,and an important leader of the Warramiri clan at Galiwin’ku (Elcho Island). The quote from Burramarra in the information panel focuses on the need for a new Australian flag to replace the present one which symbolises war.  This, he says, is will give recognition of Aboriginal people in the past and present and be a step towards bringing black and white together.
 

Scientific Racism: At the University of Melbourne and Beyond, First Floor 

The painting of Professor Richard Berry in front of a traditional academic desk becomes disturbing when seen in the context of the truth telling in this room.  He is one of the researchers who studied Indigenous remains stolen from burial sites to justify their racist eugenic theories of Aboriginal people being inferior and defective. The exhibits in this room have photos, letters, academic journals and replicas of bones to tell the story of what was done to Aboriginal people without their consent.  In recent years, Richard Berry has been so reviled by activists that they succeeded in arguing for the Richard Berry Building to be renamed.

Alongside the exhibition of the wrongs done to Aboriginal people are contemporary artworks responding  to these distressing acts.  "A preponderance of Aboriginal blood" by Judy Watson in 2005 is a powerful look at the archives.  She has taken copies of archival documents that demonstrate the oppression of Aboriginal people in an era of constriction and control.  She then showed this harm by simulating blood stains to blot the pages.

In this room the University grapples with its own shameful history.  As a white non-Indigenous person, it is uncomfortable to be confronted with the sins of my ancestors (it is uncomfortable even to write about this room) but important to understand and see it from an Indigenous point of view.  

Cultural Astronomy, Second floor 

From the Scientific Racism room, I went upstairs to a more celebratory display in the Cultural Astronomy room and yet there are still disturbing men in these stories.  The Tjanpi Desert Weavers created a large installation using woven wild grasses that conjures forth the ancestral story of the Kungkarangkalpa (Seven Sisters) in 2020.  The sister flee across country, relentlessly pursued by Wati Nyiru who wants to court the eldest sister!  They finally launch into the sky to be transformed into the stars that form the Pleiades constellation. Wati Nyiru follows to become the Orion constellation.

This grouping of cultural objects, paintings and sculptures is from Cape York, Arnhem Land, the Tiwi Islands, and the Kimberley.  I spent some time wondering at The Last Supper (2021) by Jonathan 'World Peace' Bush from the Tiwi Island.  The joyous scene with traditional ochre colours and motifs is such a different interpretation of the bible story that I grew up with.  Notable is the kangaroo on the plate in the middle of the supper.  (Or is it wallaby?)  Also from the Tiwi Island are the figures carved from ironwood from the 1950s.

I loved this bright painting called "Milky Way Dreaming" (1986) by Larry Jungarrayi Spencer, a Warlpiri from the Tanami Desert, northwest of Alice Springs.  The Milky Way, stretching across the sky, represents the Jungarrayi-Japaljarri ancestral beings who created it.  This is a great example of how dot painting can make it seems that the picture is moving like a living creation.
 

Resistance and Innovation: in city and bush studios, Second Floor

This gallery features more recent artists who use art as a form of political activism over the late 20th and early 21st Centuries.  These artworks showed more confidence and range in moving away from traditional styles while still retaining elements of them.  Here we see bright colours and fun as well as pain and anger.

I found the paintings representing Indigenous people in prison very moving.  Above is a painting called Deaths in Custody (1993) by Vincent Serico who is a Waka Waka / Kabi Kabi man, from south east Queensland First Nations.  He paints Mopoke the owl watching over the prisoners.  The owl is a powerful symbol of their connection to their country, culture and family.   

Art of the Kimberly, Second floor

This was the last room that I visited in the exhibition and it left me feeling heavy of heart.  Perhaps that is why I have found it difficult to write about.  This is an art movement that grew out of an unsettled time of dislocation and unemployment for Gija people in the East Kimberley region, Western Australia.  In 1998, Gija-owned Jirrawun Aboriginal Arts was formed. The Jirrawun artists' ochre canvases conceptually mapped their lands and recorded sites of massacres and other atrocities in their region.  No wonder there is so much black in these paintings!

The above painting is Three Nyawana in Yariny Country (2016) by Rusty Peters.  It is of a Garnkiny (Moon) Dreaming place.  The story of the place starts with an old man who fell in love with a beautiful woman of the wrong 'skin' so a relationship with her was forbidden.  He was instead meant to marry her daughters but he got shame and walked away, turning into Garnkiny (the moon) and cursed everyone, turning these Nyawana (straight skin or potential wives) into trees. 

More of the artworks in the room related to massacres that were so awful it was difficult to read the information panels.  This painting of "Major" (1999) by Freddie Timms had a different angle on the violence done to Indigenous people.  Gija hero Major, a Wardaman rebel and bushranger, was shot dead in 1908 by the Western Australian police after killing whites at Blackfella Creek.  Major is said to have acted in retribution for terrible murders and atrocities and, after killing the whites, he rescued Timms' grandmother and her sister.  The style brings together elements of dot painting and the influence of (non-Indigenous) Sidney Nolan's iconic Ned Kelly paintings.

This exhibition sits uneasily in a university that has done great harm to Indigenous people but in recent years has celebrated the resilience and centrality of their culture in our nation, albeit in a patchy way.  Truth telling requires looking at Indigenous history through the lens of empathy rather than the lens of other.  It can be confronting to try to understand history with nuance where it is not the good and the bad but real people who strive to be good but don't always manage it because our lives are so very complicated.  

After seeing this groundbreaking exhibition, I was unable to walk past the (copies of) European sculptures that adorn the walls of the Potter Gallery without feeling conflicted.  But I was very glad to have the opportunity to view  and learn about the amazing breadth of artworks from such talented and diverse First Nation artists.

65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art
The Potter Museum of Art (aka the Potter Gallery)
Corner of Swanston St and Masson Rd, Parkville
30 May – 23 November 2025
https://potter-museum.unimelb.edu.au/whats-on/exhibitions/65000-years

NOTE: It has taken me too long to write this to share it before the exhibition finishes tomorrow.  If you don't have an opportunity to visit, there are ways to learn more about it.  In writing this, I have drawn on the Potter Gallery's website as well as the rave reviews with photos and insights from the exhibition in Artlink, The Guardian, The Conversation, ABC News, The Art Newspaper, The Age and SBS NITV.  There is also a book of essays and artworks with the same title as a companion to the exhibition.