Balga Resin
Christopher PEASE: artist
Christopher Pease is an established Nyoongar artist whose practice examines Australian history with an emphasis on the colonisation and European settlement of Australia. Pease’s practice has involved research surrounduing particular interactions between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people during colonial times and depictions of such event through paintings of great detail. Most recently however, Pease has begun depicting his culture materially through the use of natural materials found across Nyoongar Country. In Balga Resin, 2008 the artist uses collected gum from the infamous Balga tree [Xanthorrhoea preissii], which has through history held many traditional applications for the Nyoongar people. Pease melts the hard gum onto a hessian surface and in doing so renders a surface in rich expanses of deep glistening reds and browns, inserting Nyoongar Country into work that discusses Nyoongar identity across time to the very present moment.
Title
Balga Resin
Artist/Maker and role
Christopher PEASE: artist
Date
2008
Medium
Balga (Grasstree) resin on canvas
Measurements
175 x 280 cm
Credit line
Purchased through the Leah Jane Cohen Bequest, The Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation, 2009
© Christopher Pease, courtesy of Goddard de Fiddes Gallery
Photo: Tony Nathan
Photo: Tony Nathan
The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia
Accession number
2009/0113