Title
A changing continent
(1986)
Artist
Jeffrey Samuels
Australia
1956 –
Language groups: Ngemba, Northern Riverine region, Barkindji, Southern Riverine region, Wonnarua, South-east region
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Details
- Place where the work was made
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New South Wales
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Australia
- Date
- (1986)
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- oil on hardboard
- Dimensions
- 187.0 x 124.2 cm sight; 188.8 x 126.0 x 2.4 cm frame
- Signature & date
Not signed. Not dated.
- Credit
- Purchased 1986
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 241.1986
- Copyright
- © Jeffrey Samuels
- Artist information
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Jeffrey Samuels
Works in the collection
- Share
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About
Jeffrey Samuels’ is an artist, teacher and community advocate and was a founding member of Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative, established in Redfern in 1987.
Acquired in 1986, 'A changing continent' was the first work by an Aboriginal artist from New South Wales to enter the Art Gallery’s collection. It belongs to a series of works Samuels made following a 1983 residency with Lardil elder Lyndsey Roughsey. In 1988 he spoke about the inspiration for the series and their connection to his identity:
This map of Australia series comes from the experience and the time that I spent with traditional people in the Gulf of Carpentaria on Mornington Island. And they came out of me learning traditional culture or traditional painting. I found it worked better using the map of Australia and earth ochres to portray my feeling and to do this kind of series of works.
My identity is my skin colour. My identity is in the land. The identity comes out of me and goes on the canvas. I’m always thinking about past, present, and the future. That is my identity.
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Places
Where the work was made
New South Wales
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Exhibition history
Shown in 6 exhibitions
, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 22 Aug 2007–28 Oct 2007
Boomalli: 20 years on, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 01 Sep 2007–28 Oct 2007
The Boomalli Ten, Boomalli Aboriginal Co-Operative, Strawberry Hills, 03 Nov 2017–28 Jan 2018
Unfinished business: artists land rights treaty, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 06 Jul 2019–02 Oct 2019
20th-Century galleries, lower level 1 (rehang), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 20 Aug 2022–2023
The Power of Creativity: My Horizon Line, Boomalli Aboriginal Co-Operative, Strawberry Hills, 09 Nov 2023–27 Jan 2024
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Bibliography
Referenced in 1 publication
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Wally Caruana, TRADITIONAL PEOPLES TODAY: The Illustrated History of Humankind; Continuity and change in the modern world, Brisbane, 1994, 96 (illus.).
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