AustLit

'Portraits of Australian Aboriginal women have historically reflected artistic styles, changing perceptions and the unique characteristics of the individual artist, but it was not until the 1950s that Aboriginal women began to be presented by Australian portraitists in a more humanistic and holistic way. In the 1960s, a shift took place in the way Aboriginal women were portrayed, when the Australian artist Margaret Olley [1923-2011] focused upon Aboriginal women differently. She imaged Aboriginal women in terms of painterly aesthetics, ignoring the societal, racial and historical meanings that could have been symbolically attached to her imagery if she had chosen to do so. This article focuses firstly on Olley’s contribution and its interpretation by the Gamilaroi art historian, Donna Leslie. It then extends the investigation of Aboriginal women's portraiture in contemporary Australian art through the exploration of a select group of paintings by the portraitist Julie Dowling (1969-), of the Badimaya people of Western Australia. This article is written by an Indigenous Australian author.' (Publication abstract)