Concept and setting a collaboration between sitter and photographer.
Fiona Foley (b. 1964), Badtjala artist, activist, curator and writer, grew up on Fraser Island and in nearby Hervey Bay before moving south to study at East Sydney Technical College. Since the mid-1980s, she has produced a body of pastels, photographs, prints and installations that explore Badtjala culture and history. Her work is held in major collections across Australia and has been exhibited in more than fifty group shows; she has created public artworks on commission for the Museum of Sydney, the Brisbane City Mall, the Australian National University, Redfern Park and many other venues. A founding member of Sydney’s Boomalli Aboriginal Artists’ Cooperative in 1987, she has served on boards of the Australia Council and on the board of directors of Bangarra Dance Theatre. In the early 1990s she co-curated two major Indigenous art exhibitions, Tyerabarrbowaryaou and Tyerabarrbowaryaou II at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney and the Havana Biennial. In 1997, with members of her family, she led a native title claim for land on Fraser Island. Foley is now an Adjunct Professor at the Queensland College of Art at Griffith University.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008
© Juno Gemes/Copyright Agency, 2024
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
This exhibition celebrates Australians whose unique life experiences symbolise social and cultural forces. Uncompromising individuality defines them. The portraits are drawn from the National Portrait Gallery’s collection of contemporary photography and drawing.
Open Air is an exhibition of portraits of Australians in environments of particular significance to them.
