.
Josie Telfer, William Blake, and Images of Transcendence
Interview with Josie Telfer
By Maureen McDermott
Preamble
Josie Telfer's painting,
"Sorry", was exhibited with the Blake Prize for Religious Art Touring Exhibition
in October, 2001 at the Australian Catholic University, Brunswick Street,
Fitzroy. Sorry is a confronting, emblematic image depicting an Aboriginal
male figure hanging from the cross.
I decided to ask Josie, on behalf of the Women's Art Register, about the content of her work; was it purely religious, or political as well? I was curious to find out the source of Josie's interest in Aboriginal people; what was it that gave her such a sense of affiliation with the Aboriginal people?
What influences enabled her to create such a powerful and empathetic statement? How did the artist come to form such perceptible and distinctive symbols in her work? Furthermore, what meaning was there for her in the religious and the spiritual? What did the Blake exhibition mean to her? What does Josie think about William Blake?
Blake's poems were comments on the injustices in his own times and his artistic vision was one of flaming transcendence: had his images and poetry helped to shape Josie’s vision of the world?
The Blake Prize for Religious Art is named after the 18th Century poet, spiritualist and artist extraordinaire William Blake. It is a highly regarded annual exhibition of selected art works produced within a spiritual/religious framework. The National exhibition travels to all the capital cities and other major towns in Australia.
Josie Telfer is presently pursuing a Postgraduate degree, Masters in Fine Art, by Research at Monash University. She is currently investigating the interaction between two- and three-dimensional works and the development of symbolic images. Josie is also a member of the Two Pi R Group of Women Painters, who regularly exhibit as a group. Their next exhibition will be held at Span Gallery in September 2002. Telfer is also a member of the Women's Art Register.
Interview: with Josie Telfer conducted by Maureen McDermott
MM: How important, do you think, is the Blake Prize within the Art World?
JT: I believe the Blake Prize has a very important role to play in Australian art today. I am reminded of the historic role of Religious Art, travelling back through time to the Renaissance, to the icon painters and beyond to the earliest cave painters. As with the other arts, in music and in dance, the importance of these origins is always recognised although the forms may have developed beyond the original tradition.
MM: What is your opinion of the art works included in this exhibition?
JT: In this exhibition there are a variety of ways of interpreting religious concepts, spirituality, the intangible and the "beyond".
MM: What are your thoughts on William Blake?
JT: William Blake and I have something in common. We share the same birthday. We have celebrated Blake's birthday in our home and in his honour people brought roses, dressed up as characters from Blake's poems and read his poetry. Adrian Rawlins, who is well known in poetry circles, read Blake's poems. Adrian died a few weeks ago.
I asked Josie how she had arrived at the image of an Aboriginal in jeans hanging on a crucifix image with a hangman's noose around his neck.
MM: Did you intentionally set out to create this "shock" image?
JT: No, but I wanted to pull the "beyond" back to harsh reality, and my representation of a contemporary Aboriginal male on the cross draws attention to the injustices our indigenous people have suffered.
MM: What does the crucifix mean to you?
JT: The crucifixion image of Christ has been interpreted in many different ways and is the most important symbol in Christian iconography.
Josie reads a quotation from Cirlot's Dictionary of Symbols:
The cross stands for the "world-axis". Placed in the mystic Centre of the cosmos, it becomes the bridge or ladder by which the soul may reach God.
Another interpretation of the cross could be a symbol of universal suffering, of the crucified Saviour identifying with the suffering of all man and women-kind, the concept that God is in fact reaching down to men and women by his identification with the pain we all experience.
MM: But the image you have painted is not of Christ but a contemporary everyday Aboriginal figure.
JT: Many artists have investigated the placing of another image representing Christ on the cross.
MM: To emphasise her point, Josie shows me a book called Images of Religion in Australian Art written by Rosemary Crumlin.
JT: See here is Boyd's painting, "Crucifixion, Shoalhaven". Boyd has broken with a two thousand year tradition by placing a woman on the cross. See what Boyd said of his work in 1987:
I do not believe it is enough that He represented all of us. I do not wish to separate the idea of suffering by allowing just a male to be seen. There has been an awakening consciousness of the potential force of women in our time.
MM: What in your background has given you empathy with the Aboriginal people?
JT: My connections with the Aboriginal people go as far back as my great grandfather, the Rev. Daniel Mathews. He and his wife, Janet, are remembered and loved by the Yorta-Yorta people. Also my cousin Nancy Cato, who died last year, has written an account of our great grandfather's care for the Aboriginal people in her historic book, Mr. Maloga.
Daniel and Janet bought a farm on the banks of the River Murray. The Aboriginal people called them, "Mr and Mrs Maloga". They called their farm "Maloga" which is the Aboriginal name for sand hills.
Josie reads from cousin Nancy's book that: "Daniel…felt that these people had been wrongfully treated…." Nancy's story reveals that great grandfather felt such compassion for the Yorta-Yorta people that he devoted his "…entire energies to alleviate their condition." My cousin Nancy Cato was friendly with the Aboriginal poet Kath Walker, whose Aboriginal name is Oodgeroo Noonuccal. Because of this historic connection, I have empathy for the Aboriginal people and a deep sadness because of all the injustices that have happened to them.
MM: How has your family history influenced you today? Do you keep in contact with Aboriginal people?
JT: Yes. I also have connections with the Walpiri people in Yuendumu, in Central Australia. They have honoured me with a skin name, "Nakamurra". Recently my husband, Max, and I went to a corroboree at Yuendumu. The people there have made dances about Christian stories and at Easter they enact the Christian Easter story. The people have few problems accepting Bible stories and link them to their Dreamtime stories without any difficulty.
MM: How did that corroboree experience in Central Australia influence your painting, Sorry?
JT: The image of the Aboriginal crucifixion stayed with me on my return. These people had interpreted a white person's story in their fashion. I needed to respond to this by making a painting that took a couple of years to complete.
MM: In your work you use symbols to express an idea. How did you go about that in your painting, Sorry?
JT: The symbol of Ayers Rock, now given the correct Aboriginal name 'Uluru', placed the painting in the centre of Australia, being the desert. The cross and Aboriginal figure on the cross was an obvious response. However, I was not content and put the painting aside for some time. Much later I thought of the contemporary Indigenous person wearing jeans, and painted this, and then put the work aside again.
MM: Did other events influence you?
JT: Yes. After that I saw a video entitled "Powder", a story about a man who was born an albino. His parents hid him away and educated him at home. When they died, his uncle decided he should go to school where he was ridiculed and suffered immensely. He had a strange electrical charge in his body that even caused the television to break when he watched it. One day at school the boys in his class threw him into a puddle of water in the middle of a thunderstorm. The lightening struck him and he stood up and then began running towards the source of the lightening. He was completely surrounded by the lightening and disappeared from their sight.
MM: How did the symbolism of this event affect you?
JT: I saw this image as a Christ symbol, as though a resurrection had taken place and the innocent victim was taken into the sky. The idea came into my mind in a flash. This would complete my painting. The crucified Aboriginal would be surrounded by light, as though he himself was in the process of resurrection.
MM: How did you connect this symbol of resurrection to everyday Aboriginal people?
JT: Whilst travelling around Australia I had seen for myself young Aboriginal men herded into police wagons. At this time the issue of mandatory sentencing and deaths in custody had become public. I felt the pain of their unjust imprisonment and the resulting death of these victims of our society.
MM: What was the symbolism when you painted the noose?
JT: The pain. I painted the noose above the cross to reinforce the image of pain, but also to connect the painting to the present. This was another issue, yet somehow, the light around the figure was so strong that the layering of the resurrection symbol was stronger than the image of the noose.
MM: Did you feel the work was finished?
JT: No, I was not content. There was still another layer I had not yet found. I knew I ran the great risk of overloading the subject, of making the work too complicated. I waited for the final answer.
MM: You knew that to wait was part of the process?
JT: Yes. The final answer to the painting came on "Sorry Day" last year. As I heard on the radio the events happening relating to that special day, I painted "Sorry" across the whole of the painting. I knew it was then complete.
MM: How did you know writing that word, "Sorry", was the final act in the painting?
JT: When a Walpiri person dies, the people have a mourning practice. The family moves away from the main camp and forms a "Sorry Camp" where they grieve and wail. We have camped in an Aboriginal camp and heard the rising and falling of wailing in the darkness, as though the whole of humanity is experiencing inconsolable grief.
MM: Josie emphasises her point:
JT: So that is why we must say "Sorry" and why I have said it this way.
Maureen McDermott is a writer for Artists
"Sorry"
Josie Telfer
Home