Joan Ross first arrived in Sydney as a baby, by ship. Born in Glasgow, her family had made the decision to leave Scotland and take the long journey south. A young Jimmy Barnes was on the same ship, but he was to disembark in Adelaide, or so the
story goes. Ross' first memory of Sydney, then, is of water and of borders - of the hug of the harbour foreshore and of having to show a passport on arrival at Circular Quay.
Joseph Lycett arrived in Sydney by ship in 1814. Convicted of forgery in 1810, the Crown had sentenced the painter to transportation for fourteen years. In May of 1815, hundreds of forged five-shilling notes began circulating in Sydney, and Lycett was discovered to be in possession of a tiny copper-plate press. He was convicted of forgery, again, and sent to Newcastle. But Lycett's skill as a painter meant he would soon receive a conditional pardon - a reward from Governor Macquarie for a collection of three drawings, one of which was a view of Sydney (presumably with harbour glimpses).
Lycett's original landscapes loom large in Ross' work, and, although they are ostensibly scenes of the settler-colony, they often have rolling hills and pastoral fields, all painted in almost-too-English greens. Ross, who has been exhibiting since the 1980s, cuts up and rearranges these landscapes, inserting brigadier in a fluorescent pink coat, or a yellow-tipped magpie, or a graffiti-spraying woman in 19th century garb. In 'All You Can Eat Seafood Buffet' (2017), the water of Sydney Harbour is not blue but a hi-vis yellow, with gold British naval ships floating on top of the tepid pool. The harbour becomes a conduit for Empire, and the yellow sheen marks the water (and the land it touches) as a site of invasion, as the vector point for pollution and colonial contagion. In the bottom right-hand corner, a neon sign sits atop a sandstone cottage - 'SEAFOOD BUFFET'- and the sky is filled with dust and smoke.
To be a forger means to make fraudulent copies (of money, of artworks, of objects), but it also means to spin false tales: to deploy trickery and fakery and play around with the truth. To hand over a falsified five-shilling note with absolute assurance and move on before the seller discovers the ruse. To make you look once, and then look again. Is it real? Yes. Is it real? Maybe not. Wait!
We could think of other types of forgeries too, or other types of false tales cloaked in the language of truth. Terra Nullius is a type of forgery, as is sticking a flag in the ground on arrival at Port Botany, as is building a sandstone wall at Farm Cove so as
to create a 'Governor's Domain' so as to be secluded from the unwanted 'public gaze'.
We might also think of Ross as a kind of forger, or as a kind of repurposer of colonial remnants. (Joan remembers to me that, as a child, she was entranced by her mother's news of a forger who had copied fifty-dollar notes.) But this is a type of
forgery that uncovers, rather than deceives - it unsettles and ungrounds. In creating other alternatives or tricks or fakeries, it reveals the colonial myth and the lie; it exposes the stolen land underneath it and the dispossession of the true custodians of the land.
Sydney then, for Ross, is not only her home, but also a central locus for the Empire's arrival. It is a formative site from which settler violence spreads outward across the continent, with its early renderings in paint, it is a material that Ross can jumble and cut-up and overlap. There's an impishness to her work, with hidden hints and easter eggs, and this mishmash of trans-historical references creates a link between 19th century colonialism and 21st century materialism and environmental destruction. For Ross, an iced cake, a colonial botanist, and a sign to 'Please Keep off the Grass', are all connected, and are ample fodder for satire. Having grown up in Sydney's West. Ross now lives in Bondi, near the ocean, and the suburb's landscape - the sounds of local birds, as well as the cameras and signage surrounding cliff-side mansions - makes its way into a video, or a painting, or a drawing.
For the new piece 'Colonial History of Manly' (2021) Ross presents a reworking of a Lycett, or rather a reworking of a ‘fake Lycett’: a pretend composite that could be an original Lycett scene, or it could be an imagined Joan Ross version of a Lycett scene. In making copies of copies, Ross is again playing around with the legacies of history - with what is perceived as being true, and what is mistaken as false. It's a retelling of the colonial tale, but told from a different perspective, as if we were to view historical Sydney through a reverse telescope, with added fluorescent filters. Did Lycett ever paint Manly? Perhaps, replies Joan. It's possible.
After I had spoken to Joan about this particular work, Joseph Lycett started turning up unexpectedly. (This often happens when you speak to Joan about her artworks - things will start to cross your path, like a bright yellow excavator toy or a sign that says 'Private Property'.) A quick reference to a Lycett painting, and his forgery conviction, appeared in a book I was reading. Later, I went searching online, and I learnt that forgery was a compulsive habit for Lycett (or one borne out of repetitive necessity). He was convicted of forgery, yet again, on his return to England. But it seems Lycett did not just forge money. Several of his watercolours, owned by the National Library of Australia, appear to be partly copied. Or at the very least, close imitations of other paintings. So, this could make Ross' 'Colonial History of Manly' a copy of a copy of a copy.
Another false thread to follow. Another double to look at, and then turn back, and look closer, again.
