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The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present.

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Bern Emmerichs

video: 4 minutes

...and palette knife. To get my Andy Warhol signature. Up here, in the pink frame. My sister got it in New York. She jumped into his limousine. The Rajah Quilt was done on a convict ship that set sail the fifth of April, 1841 I think. On that ship, all the women were given little bags of sewing equipment, fabrics, scissors, needles, everything needed for making this quilt, and the result was a three metre by three metre amazing piece of art. And I read up about it, it was just fascinating, and also the characters behind it, like Kezia Hayter, who was the matron on the ship, and she was sent down to look after the women on the ship. She fell in love with the captain of the ship, I think it was Captain Ferguson. She had a very eventful time, it was busy. Trailblazing Jane, that's Lady Jane Franklin. She was married to the governor-general of Tasmania. She was a bit of a character, didn't have any children, and probably just wanted to be a celebrity really. This is the Rajah ship, that's all the 180 women, including the children. Every little bit of data was recorded about them because if they escaped, then they would, yes, that's you. I mean right down to scar on the left shoulder or whatever because I suppose that's like a place record. And often with the women, it was just BAD in capital letters, shocking. There was a report done when the ship landed, I think in Hobart, and a newspaper that had written about it and sort of saying that the women on this convict ship were seemed to be a little bit more well-behaved, but saying that, that was probably because they were occupied with this and loved maybe doing it, and probably just that nice thing of women getting together and having a good gnasher and a sew. I've got here the shape of Tasmania. This I've done the plates in representing all the 180 female convicts that were on the ship. Being significant because food was probably the highlight of the day, being on the ship, and just putting their names up in lights because what they produced on that ship was quite extraordinary. If you look closely, there's a red smudge on every one. Well that's my fingerprint, sort of representing their fingerprint, just that blood, sweat and tears that they would have endured on that ship, the hardship. The writing, like this writing here, is done with stamps. I use very fine brushes, so much so that I'll buy brushes and give them haircuts, cut them down, so I finally have got very few hairs on the brush. But yeah, it's my therapy, I suppose. Aldo, Aldo. Hi, you are so cheeky.

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The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present. We respectfully advise that this site includes works by, images of, names of, voices of and references to deceased people.

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