Matilda Davis’s The White Man’s Web emerged out of the Badjala/Batjala artist’s memories of environmental destruction in the vicinity of her coastal home during childhood and adolescence.
“I first thought about making this work as a teenager after seeing discarded crab pots with juvenile milbi [turtles] and shovelnose rays stuck in them,” says Davis. “When I was a kid, I would visit the islands of Korrawinga [the Great Sandy Strait], seeing bird skeletons with their stomachs filled with plastic, birds with fishing line bound around their feet and young mangroves being strangled.”
The White Man’s Web is a single large-scale installation crafted from dead birri (mangroves), milbi, fish skeletons, bird skulls and, Davis says, “the white man’s trash” that she has collected.
“Over the years the decline in culturally and ecologically significant species has had a big impact on me. When we go fishing and crabbing you don’t get much anymore. This work is about confronting how colonialism and capitalism impacts Country and, inherently, Indigenous communities and the ability to practise culture.”
The exhibition is a landmark show for the emerging Indigenous artist, who counts Fiona Foley and local artist Joel Barney among her influences. Up until now, her focus has been more on small-scale paintings using materials sourced from Country. In these earlier works Davis’s art emphasises “positive experiences on Country, my connection to Country and how my ancestors communicate to me through Country”.
“Whereas this project is about what threatens those cultural connections,” says Davis. “This work is also a departure from what I normally produce in its scale and the centrality of mass-produced rubbish.”
The White Man’s Web
Matilda Davis
Hervey Bay Regional Gallery
11 May—30 June
This article was originally published in the May/June 2024 print edition of Art Guide Australia.
Suggested Reading
The ceramics of the Central Desert
Developed in 2022 by Artback NT as part of Apmere Mparntwe—the Australian Ceramics Triennale— touring exhibition Clay on Country, showing now at New England Regional Art Museum, showcases the diversity of ceramics in the Central Desert.
Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen
About Face mirrors the alluring world of contemporary portrait painting
About Face is a smart piece of marketing. The new book on portrait painting from Australia and New Zealand has a mission to change buyers’ minds about the field. But as Jane O’Sullivan discovers, any sales pitch wears thin if it’s repeated often enough, and the close attention to how portrait painting is received by the market means that other important conversations fade to the background.
Jane O'Sullivan
Elizabeth Mbitjana Pitijana and inherited influence
In Anmatyerr artist Elizabeth Mbitjana Pitijana’s first solo exhibition in Melbourne—which focuses on the Central Desert food source Arnwekety (bush plum)—the influence and love of her Country and culture is palpable. Elizabeth Mbitjana Pitijana is now showing at Niagara Galleries.
Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen
A conversation between past and present
An exhibition at the Museum of Brisbane sheds a new light on Brisbane’s history, presenting a significant historical archive of photography alongside contemporary artists responding to the original source material.
Art Guide Australia
Helen Mueller tells stories of the forest
Helen Mueller has been printmaking for 25 years, but moving to Hobart four years ago shifted her focus to the local natural environment. Now her delicate prints, made with materials foraged from the forest floor, are showing at Handmark Gallery.
Sally Gearon
Present moments at the Gold Coast Triennial
Now showing at Home of the Arts (HOTA), the sophomore Gold Coast Triennial, Here and Now, brings together 42 contemporary artists to represent the depth and dynamism of the city’s artistic community.