$3900

The Ten Goolburies snd The Ten Goolburies 

In Firebrand, Nilsen also unveiled two new limited edition prints – on paper and canvas – entitled The Ten Goolburies (revisited). The Ten Goolburies – of the Mandandanji Neighbours series – was completed in 2008 as individually titled works. The artists uses various tribal group names in a direct reference to Horton’s Map of Aboriginal Australia. Beginning with his own Mandandanji tribal name from South Western Queensland – where Nilsen was born and raised – Nilsen links foreground and background colours, with neighbouring tribal group names, as a form of recognising extended families. The premise here is that emus appear and wander all over Australia – as does the artist. This work employs a combination of hand painted acrylic and screen-printed techniques where the artist’s emus appear as bizarre family portraits. Indeed emus are Nilsen’s totems: “These emu portraits are about crossing over boundaries” says Nilsen. The Ten Goolburies is a blatant reference to Warhol’s The Ten Marilyns, harking back to Nilsen’s ongoing interest in popular culture viewed through indigenous sensibilities.