DARREN BLACKMAN | 'Sovereignty Exists' | Acrylic & Wu (Ochre) on Paper

Works on paper by Darren Blackman created in early 2020, that reflect the current and ongoing state of the Country through a First Nations lens.

As a proud Gureng Gureng/Gangalu man from Queensland’s central coast with Kanak South Sea Island heritage from Vanuatu, Blackman grew up in the Sunshine Coast town of Nambour and has been living and working throughout the Far North and Western Queensland since 1995.

Touching on oral history from his Elders and reworking those messages, Expose the Gap, also channels Blackman’s observations, and is a culmination of his lived experience, witness to wide Aboriginal perspectives and mainstream political and media inference.

Through this work, Blackman speaks to some of the issues at the centre of the Australian Government’s Close the Gap campaign, that set intent to achieve health, education and employment equality by 2030 and reduce the seventeen year life-expectancy gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous peoples.

This work is dedicated to the Wik peoples of Western Cape York.

DARREN BLACKMAN | 'Sovereignty  Exists' | 2020 | Acrylic & Wu (Ochre) on Hahnemuhle paper | 78 (h) x 107 (w) cm