Portraying a mixture of historical fact and fiction Michael Cook’s latest suite of photographs advance a parade of unrealised scenarios from colonial times. Entitled ‘Civilised’, this suite presents illusory narratives from Australia’s colonial past which are filled with supposition and conjecture.
Fashioned from the artist’s subliminal self, the works explore the contemporaneous European assumption that the original inhabitants of this continent were not ‘civilised’. This is despite the fact that the ‘Original Australians’ had lived for millennia in harmony with a fragile ecosystem and had managed complex systems of land allotment, trade and politics.
Andrew Baker Art Dealer
December 4 to 22, 2012
Brisbane
Civilised #7, 2012, inkjet print on paper, 100 x 87.5cm
Courtesy the artist and Andrew Baker Art Dealer
