Dreaming.

Dreaming by Arrernte and Kalkadoon artist, Thea Anamara Perkins tells a story of a life. Fragments of images and footage invite you to dissect every deliberate brush stroke until it melds together to create a moment. This particular body of works create an overwhelming sense of nostalgia that feels so real, you want to touch it, to climb into it. It speaks directly to the theme of sisters because so much like the love of a sister, the artworks create a safe space, dripped in life and love, like a warm, all encasing hug. 

Aboriginal way, a sister isn’t just someone you share parents with, it’s a much deeper connection and obligation to the women in your life, whether that be your cousins, friends, mothers, aunties and nanas. This ancient kinship works to create important cultural roles and responsibilities within your family, language groups and wider community, because of this, the intrinsic role of sister is venerated.

The works force you to look inward and reflect on your own self, to insert yourself into a memory that’s not your own but evokes enough familiarity that it feels like it should be. It invites you into these private moments on a very human level. As an observer you’re offered a seat in the living room while the TV runs in the background, given the view of someone’s baby peacefully tucked beneath a patch-work blanket, or you’re there to witness the first time a big sister gets to hold her little sister. The joys of childhood and the evidence of time is omnipresent throughout the works, from the delicate colour palettes to the photographic style of painting.

There’s also a strong sense of self entwined within each of Perkins’ pieces, a proudness to know who she is and where she’s come from: a mother, a grandmother, a great-grandmother and beyond; an elaborate history that dates back to when creation stories were first lived and passed on by Aboriginal people.

For so long, the Aboriginal experience has been made out to be a spectacle, something for a Western audience to watch from a safe distance, desperate to pick apart by the bit. Despite every attempt to reduce Aboriginal existence down to this one-dimensional narrative, Dreaming encapsulates a raw depiction of Perkins’ own Aboriginal family, not tinted by a Western lens; unfiltered. It abolishes any stereotype that puts an Aboriginal way of life into a box that doesn’t fit.