Eight views of the Telegraph Station.: Online only

With a delicate hand, Thea Anamara Perkins answers heavy questions about what it means to be Indigenous in contemporary Australia, and how Aboriginal people and Country can and should be portrayed.

Eight Views of the Telegraph Station is a personal meditation on the site known as the Old Telegraph Station in Mparntwe (Alice Springs), which takes the Western figurative landscape tradition and imbues it with the personal and spiritual associations of Country. Resisting the contemporary appetite for the “next” new and different idea - the series took inspiration from non-Western traditions of revisiting, most famously demonstrated by Hokusai or - literally closer to home - the painters of the central and western deserts. 

The subterranean spring nearby is a source of precious, life-giving water and an analogy for the hidden cultural forces that surge through this site. It’s utterly beautiful. In some ways this corporeal landscape is a portrait.

Thea Anamara Perkins is an Arrernte and Kalkadoon artist whose practice incorporates portraiture and landscape to depict authentic representations of First Nations peoples and Country. With a delicate hand, Thea answers heavy questions about what it means to be Indigenous in contemporary Australia, and how Aboriginal people can and should be portrayed.

Thea’s Arrernte name Anamara describes a river and a Dreaming that runs north of Mparntwe (Alice Springs) – the place that keeps calling her back and has been the wellspring of art and activism for her family, and by extension, the nation. Perkins continues her family’s commitment to what she calls “strong and ready communication” and is part of an extraordinary dynasty of First Nations activists and creatives that includes activist Charles Perkins (her grandfather), Arrernte elder Hetti Perkins (her great-grandmother), curator Hetti Perkins (her mother) and acclaimed film director Rachel Perkins (her aunt).