Over the period of data collection, the project amassed a total of 641 biographies, which were published on the Dictionary of Australian Artists Online (DAAO) during the lifetime of the project. They can all be found with an advanced search on the DAAO on Source of Info Storylines. Most of the biographies were written by the Storylines team. A small but significant proportion were commissioned from art historians, curators and artist’s family members. In some cases, the Storylines team worked with galleries and arts organisations to upload already-existing biographies that they had produced about artists in their stable. In some instances the artists themselves contributed a complete biography. Jessica Birk is one such example.
To obtain an accurate set of figures on contemporary Indigenous artists from the survey area, it was necessary to exclude some of these biographies from the sample. We made a point wherever possible of collecting biographies of key historical figures from the ‘settled’ regions. Thanks to Storylines, the DAAO includes the biographies of Bowen Bungaree, the first recorded Indigenous artist, and other nineteenth century figures such as Mickey of Ulladulla, Tommy McCrae, Flora and Legallé from Tasmania, Oscar of Cooktown from QLD, William Barak (to be hyperlinked upon publication which will be soon – Tess) from VIC and William Monop from WA[1] Though the lives and achievements of these artists are crucial to the history of Indigenous art, particularly in the ‘settled’ regions, this information was not relevant to a demography of contemporary practitioners and their biographies were excluded from the survey group.
Drawing by Bowen Bungaree held in Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW
Paintings and Drawings by Mickey of Ulladulla held in Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW
Drawing by Tommy McRae held in State Library of Victoria
Drawing by Oscar of Cooktown held in National Museum of Australia
Photography of and images by William Barak held in State Library of Victoria
Koori Art '84 - installation view. Photographer Unknown. Image courtesy of Artspace
What exactly do we mean by ‘contemporary’ anyway? All currently producing artists were included, plus artists whose deaths had occurred since the early 1980s, when what was at the time called ‘non-traditional Indigenous art’ made its debut before contemporary art audiences in Australia with the Koori Art ‘84 exhibition at ArtSpace in Sydney. Koori Art 84 is generally reckoned as the starting point of the contemporary Indigenous art movement (though as we shall see, its precursors amongst the survey group go back several decades at least before that). Though their deaths may have occurred within this period, we also excluded the child artists of Carrolup Aboriginal Mission in Western Australia, whose biographies were collected and published on the DAAO in the course of the research[2]. Although their descendants continue their artistic legacy and constitute a very significant contingent of the survey’s Western Australian artists, the child artists were omitted because they had ceased to make art in the 1950s when they left Carrolup and thus did not qualify as ‘contemporary’ practitioners under this definition[3].
Carrolup Child Artists in Colgate University collection
However, others who have passed away in the past few decades were included in the survey. Pioneering figures like Lin Onus, Kevin Gilbert and Ron Hurley were key agents in the emergence of contemporary Indigenous art, and Bella Kelly had a significant influence upon several currently practicing artists in South-western WA during her lifetime.
Lin Onus images from Picture Australia website
Kevin Gilbert images from Picture Australia website
Bella Kelly image of artwork from Southwest Central exhibition
We also excluded from the sample a group of contemporary practitioners who reside in communities in far North Queensland[4]. However we did leave in the sample a few individuals from ‘remote’ Aboriginal Australia and the Torres Strait Islands who have taken up residence in larger cities that are within the survey area – often in pursuit of a burgeoning art career. Ken Thaiday Snr and Rosella Namok come to mind.
Our total sample, arrived at after these exclusions, numbered 593 artists.
Image courtesy of Felicity Jenkins, 2010
[1] William Barak was already represented, though a more detailed biography was commissioned by Storylines.
[2]See Parnell Dempster, Keith Indich, Claude Kelly, Reynold Hart, Simpson Kelly, Milton Jackson and Vera Wallam
[3] The exception is Alan Kelly, who was still painting in 2009
[4] The DAAO needs biographies of these artists for its larger project of gathering biographies of all Australian artists past and present, so they were accordingly included when the Storylines researchers came across their biographies in the catalogues of the two ‘Gatherings’ survey exhibitions of Queensland Indigenous artists staged at the Queensland Art Gallery in 2001 and 2006.