Indigenous artist’s exhibition a full-circle moment
Keira Jenkins |
Assembling a retrospective of her 30-year career as an artist has been a rollercoaster ride for Jemima Wyman.
Not only is the work involved immense, the Palawa woman best known for her photo collage creations was forced to endure the cancellation of the exhibition for reasons beyond her control.
Facing financial challenges, Queensland University of Technology Art Museum was forced to cut its program in late 2024, including Wyman’s show.
The Brisbane museum was then flooded when wild storms hit the state’s south the following month.
Thankfully, no works were damaged, but the building’s ruined floors had to be ripped up and replaced.
With the show finally back on track, Wyman says it has been worth waiting for despite the setbacks.
“It’s a gift for me to be able to have the space and time and to have people interested in the practice and wanting to reflect,” she told AAP.
“I feel very lucky to have this opportunity.”
Wyman has exhibited internationally and throughout Australia but QUT, where the Mackay-born creative has both studied and taught, holds a special place in her heart.
To return to the university for a career survey presents a full-circle moment for her.
“The works that start the show from when I was 17 in 1995, it was the first year of my university degree at QUT,” she said.
“QUT has played an extremely important role in my life and my career in terms of giving me first-time opportunities and this is another first-time opportunity.”
Beyond collage, Wyman’s work encompasses textile, installation, video, performance and painting mediums.
Her creations have been gathered from QUT’s own collection as well as from public and private collectors.
Seeing everything assembled for the first time is a thrill in itself, she says.
Her favourite work in the show is Thronging Bluff Face, a masked quilt-tent garment she wore in a 2014 protest performance.
“It’s really about the interaction of the works and showing people the scope of the practice in terms of the wide-ranging ideas and values and how they get reiterated in different works, in different periods,” she said.
“I’m really excited about seeing all the different material expressions of ideas come together and being able to walk backwards and forwards in space with them.”
Curator Katherine Dionysius said the exhibition invited audiences into a kaleidoscopic world of visual and conceptual complexity.
“Deep Surface offers a vivid lens through which to interpret Ms Wyman’s richly layered practice,” she said.
Jemima Wyman: Deep Surface opens on February 16.
The exhibition will tour interstate in 2026 and 2027, to Adelaide’s Samstag Museum of Art and UNSW Galleries in Sydney.
AAP
