Title
At home with the Locust People (Itchy feet)
1974-1975
Artist
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Details
- Place where the work was made
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New York
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New York
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United States of America
- Date
- 1974-1975
- Media categories
- Mixed media painting , Painting
- Materials used
- oil and collage on canvas
- Dimensions
- 140.3 x 184.6 x 5.1 cm frame
- Signature & date
Signed l.r. corner, red oil "Bonita Ely".
Dated u.r. corner verso on canvas, red oil "1974-75/ ...".- Credit
- Rudy Komon Memorial Fund 2015
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 7.2015
- Copyright
- © Bonita Ely/Copyright Agency
- Artist information
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Bonita Ely
Works in the collection
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About
Since the early 1970s, Bonita Ely's work has explored cultural histories and human interaction with the natural world, focusing in particular on themes of environmental degradation. She produced 'At home with the Locust People (Itchy feet)' 1974-75 at a time when pollution and population were prominent issues. The central figures are mutant hybrids of human and locust anatomies. These vulgar creatures embrace precariously in a domestic setting, a gesture that conflates human behaviour with the 'gregarious phase' of locusts, in which they congregate into rapacious, mass-reproducing swarms with disastrous impacts on land fertility. Correspondingly, the view out the window beyond is bleak: a vast, unpopulated expanse which smoulders an ominous dirty-amber. The work is a cynical prediction of future environmental devastation, in which humans are both the victim and perpetrator.
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Places
Where the work was made
New York
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Exhibition history
Shown in 3 exhibitions
At home with the Locust People, West Street Gallery, , Feb 1975–Unknown
20th-Century galleries, ground level (rehang), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 20 Aug 2022–2023
24th Biennale of Sydney (2024), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 09 Mar 2024–10 Jun 2024
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Bibliography
Referenced in 5 publications
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Nancy Borlase., The Sydney Morning Herald, 'Visions of a locust land to come', Sydney, 19 Feb 1976, page number unknown (illus.).
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Janine Bourke, Field of vision. A decade of change: women's art in the seventies, 'Site specific: Bonita Ely's landscapes', pg. 92-98, Ringwood, 1990, 94 (illus.).
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Gary Catalano, An intimate Australia: The landscape & recent Australian art, Sydney, 1985, 77-78. general reference to 'The Locust People' series
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Meredith Rogers, Three statements on environment: Margaret Bell, Bonita Ely, Erica McGilchrist, Melbourne, 1976, n.pag.. general reference to 'The Locust People' series
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Anne Stephen, Anything goes: art in Australia 1970-1980, 'A process of de-neutralising: a review of three Sydney exhibitions', pg. 62-67, Melbourne, 1984, 62-67. reprinted from Lip, no 1, 1977, pp 27-28; general reference to 'The Locust People'
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