Sally_Morgan

Sally Morgan is an aboriginal writer and painter whose family was severly affected by “the stolen generation” atrocities committed by white governments since the first settlement until the second half of the twentieth century. Her most famous work is the biography of her family’s struggle with the dominant white patriarchy. It has been set for the HSC and is titled My Place, the title of the book is echoed in the visual text My Grandmother’s Country. The use of the possessive “my” in both titles , together with “place” and “country” clearly indicates Morgan’s attitudes to social justice issues such as land rights and individual freedom for aboriginals. Her tone is angry and frustrated as well as deeply saddened as a result of her family’s experiences. The painting My Grandmother’s Country is a distinctively visual text which represents the power of the white colonial patriarchy in colonizing and altering the landscape of Northern Australia. It also constructs a highly negative image of pastoralists who not only dominated the land but also its people through extreme racial discrimination. Morgan’s purpose is to promote understanding of the social and historical destruction of Aboriginals’ way of life and hopefully to promote change in values and attitudes. The painting shapes meaning and influences our responses by combining traditional aboriginal painting techniques to represent the indigenous story and a basic childish primitivism to construct the colonial people and property. This structure juxtaposes images through stylistic devices and highlights the difference between the aboriginal’s, centuries old occupation of the land with the invasion of the Europeans. A large black crow hovering over the land ad central vector here which symbolises the death of the aboriginal people and the destruction of their land. Together with this, there is visual hyperbole in the size of the white man who stands aggressively on land that is represented as a graveyard of aboriginal life, culture and environment. This idea is furthered by the European side of the story occupying one quarter of the canvas with the aboriginals version filling the rest. A line of skulls divides the two sections creating a visual metaphor for the white genocide of aboriginals. The strong blue and ochre colours provide an image which forces us to consider our history. The blue in the aboriginal section is framed to show a ship disturbing peaceful waters which symbolises European technology’s destruction of the painting, the blue is found in the clothing and roof of a house, again disturbing aboriginal culture the major palette is ochre again reinforcing the image of the natural environment and lifestyle pre-European settlement. In the painting, Morgan not only represents her strong point of view regarding the treatment of her people who have suffered for so long she has fragmented the historical events but also provoked an emotional response from viewers of the painting. She also privileges the values and attitudes of aboriginals towards their communities and environment through her use of strong contrast in the images. We first interpret the painting at a literal level of factual information but gradually recognize that it has encapsulated historical, social and personal experiences. Through examining this distinctively visual text we recognise the role of the responder in shaping meaning from the construction of the composer. As we continue to become a less literal and more visual culture, we understand the power of visual texts to inform and challenge our perceptions and emotions.