Therese Ritchie Artist Talk | Contemporary Australia: Women | GOMA

Therese Ritchie was instrumental in the political poster movement of the late 1980s and her early work with graphic design techniques continues to inform recent digital collages and inkjet prints. Ritchie is committed to addressing topical issues affecting Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory — the context in which she lives and works — particularly the complex terrain of race relations. Addressing subject matter that is at times painful, sad or frustrating, Ritchie also uncovers its beauty. Ritchie's portraits for 'Contemporary Australia: Women' are mostly of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory, particularly Darwin, where she has lived since the early 1980s. As a non-Indigenous woman with ties to Indigenous groups in the Top End, Ritchie stands at a crossroads between black and white Australia, working with communities to address Indigenous health care, education, economic reform, employment and land rights. While Ritchie's interest is in social, economic and political reform, and her photographs are often titled using the sitter's name, her work is far from 'straight' photography. Here, she has used Corel Painter and Photoshop software to collage sitters' faces against landscapes: computer 'brushstrokes' illuminate both people and settings. In Jeannie Kandiwirri, Church Camp (From 'You know me' series) 2011, the sitter squints at the camera, her hands shielding her face; with Donald, Coles, Alice Springs 2011, taken during four days spent in a local shopping mall, Donald's gaze is directed off camera, above Ritchie's lens. (As with all her portraits, Ritchie received permission to take these photos.) Therese Ritchie's photographs raise complex issues at the heart of documentary photography. In particular, who are these photographs for -- the people they depict, their communities, or gallery visitors? Or for all of us, in our different situations? 'Contemporary Australia: Women' includes more than 70 works in painting, sculpture, photography, installation, textiles, video, and performance. The exhibition will explore key themes such as 'performing' femininity; the place of personal and intimate spheres such as sexuality, the body, motherhood and ageing; the return to everyday materials; and the ways some artists are 'redressing the canon' of painting. Contemporary Australia: Women | 21 April -- 22 July 2012 | Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) | Free admission For more details visit http://qagoma.qld.gov.au/exhibitions/current/contemporary_australia_women/art... Opening Hours 10.00am — 5.00pm Monday to Friday 9.00am — 5.00pm Saturday and Sunday 9.00am — 5.00pm Public Holidays