Literature in our Collection
(A-L)

Genocchio, Benjamin: Fiona Foley, Solitaire, Annandale 2001, ISBN 0958798494

Table of Contents        ¦         Cover Text        ¦         Book Review

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements -10-

Djon Mundine: Foreword -13-

Thoorgine Rising -21-

Life and the Landscape -25-

Archives, History and Memory -49-

Pastels and Politics -71-

Fiona Foley, Chronology -94-

Cover Text

'Fiona Foley: Solitaire' is the first major publication on the work of this noted artist. It presents Foley's practice as a unique voice in Australian art and a strong presence in contemporary Aboriginal culture. Ben Genocchio's text explores Fiona Foley's art and its engagement with a variety of themes and subjects - from history, memory and politics to the unique flora, fauna and landscapes around Fraser Island. Genocchio worked closely with Foley and visited Fraser Island to experience the spirit of the place and how it is embedded in her work. Foley employs diverse media including drawing, installation, photography, painting and sculpture. Examples of the artist's early rich pastels including two frist exhibited at the Boomalli gallery and now in the collection of Art Gallery of New South Wales are reproduced and give a sense of the evocative and intuitive nature of her drawing and painting. Foley's installations include 'Land Deal' and 'Life of the Land', both of which present a collection of tools and colonial trinkets that were an initial payment for the Wurendjeri land of Melbourne. Custodianship, occupation and possession are at the heart of these works, and these are themes that resonate throughout Foley's work. Whatever the media or message, Fiona Foley's aim is to create a kind of theatrical space for the articulation of certain inviolable realities about indigenous life in Australia. In many of her works, she attempts to reconstruct Badtjala history, often using her own or family experiences to anchor her works, reinserting stories into the ebb an flow of history through the tributary of art.