Jesus Christ! - Daniel Boyd

Jesus Christ! A series of works that engage with ideas relating to Christianity and beliefs that predate this particular religion. Christianity’s movement through landscape is a principal element of the work, in particular an Aboriginal landscape. Referencing the art of Albert Namatjira (a pupil of Rex Battarbee), presents the opportunity to allude to a popular idea of Australian Aboriginal landscape. I aim to highlight the repercussions of a journey that disregard Pre-Christian information or story by reworking images containing Jesus in a similar fashion. Fragmentation of the picture plane refers to this disregard of Aboriginal cultural practices, which were seen to be heathenish. Treatment of the surface in this manner allows me to question processes and outcomes of Christian Enlightenment in relation to colonial methodologies.

My partner’s Grandmother bought a Reuben Pareroultja (1916-1986) watercolour from Rex Battarbee’s Gallery on a sight seeing Tour of the Northern Territory in the early 60’s. When she was having the work cleaned and re-framed last year I acquired the old frame, allowing me to conceptually frame the work as ‘Modern Australian Aboriginal Art.’