Artwork: Connections: harshness and beauty; past, present, future 1995/6
Artist: John Johnno Johnson
Medium: Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, corrugated iron, wire, feathers (cockatoo and gang-gang) wood (paperbark), woollen thread, plastic twine and blood
Dimensions: 3 @ 150 x 150cm
Acquisition: Gift from the Chief Minister’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Council in 1996
Asset no: OLA001967
About the Work
The ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Council commissioned Johnson to produce this work in 1994, following a call for submissions. The artist consulted with a range of Ngunnawal/Ngambri families on the instruction of the Council, and from this exchange he integrated the motifs and story of a damaged past, hopeful present and positive future.
About the Artist
Installation artist and printmaker Johnno Johnson, a Wambaya/Warumangu man, was born in the Northern Territory in 1959, and moved to Canberra c1980, when the artist worked as a fencer in the Namadgi National Park in the ACT. Several of his works are a part of the ACT Legislative Assembly Building's Art Collection as well as his work being is the NMA, NGA and the NSW art gallery's collections.