This year’s JCU Library Eddie Koiki Mabo Library Art Exhibition - Insights: A selection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art from the James Cook University Art Collection - is on display in the library until Sunday September 8, 2024. Curated by the Library Special Collections team, the exhibition highlights a range of artworks by Australian First Nations’ artists which are part of the JCU Art Collection.
One of the significant artworks on display is Flight Path by Clare Jaque Vasquez, an emerging Aboriginal artist descended from the Kamilaroi people of north-central New South Wales and Welsh ancestry. Clare grew up in Sydney and later moved to live in her mother’s / grandmother’s country in a community near Tamworth.
Vasquez’s artworks are textural and painterly, often monochromatic, landscapes. She makes her mixed media artworks by layering paint and mediums onto canvas, creating a combination of flat, incised and raised ‘woven’ surfaces. Her meditative motifs and subdued palette with light and earthy hues resonate her cultural stories, and related histories and places.
“Clare gently encourages the viewer to think about the shifting roles between contemporary society and First Nations practices and how traditional practices have evolved to occur in the modern world.”i
Vasquez’s first solo exhibition Weaving with Paint was held at Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts in Townsville in 2023, in which Flight Path was featured. The artworks in this exhibition capture “her stories and memories of being surrounded by three generations of Gomeroi/Kamilaroi women, navigating the complexities and journey of the modern world.”ii
“I want viewers to move and shuffle in the space to view works from different angles and from a close proximity. There's almost a dance that happens when viewers experience my work. They double-back for more and try to touch and connect. The contorted, raised topographical map lines appear different when a viewer is ready to see."iii
Flight Path was acquired by James Cook University to commemorate the historic investiture of the first female, and first Indigenous Chancellor, Professor Ngiare Brown on 1 June 2023.
“Professor Brown’s appointment is a milestone for our state, as she becomes the first Indigenous Chancellor of a Queensland university and only the third in Australia. This is a momentous occasion and one that we should all be proud of. It is an important step towards reconciliation and a recognition of the contributions that Indigenous people make to our society and economy.”iv
Flight Path is impressive in scale, subtly powerful and connections between Professor Brown’s advocacy work and the subject matter of Vasquez’s artworks can be drawn:
“In addition to her academic and advocacy work, Professor Brown is the Founding Director of Ngaoara, a not-for-profit committed to child and adolescent wellbeing… Through Ngaoara, she supports communities to develop strength-based approaches to breaking intergenerational cycles of trauma and disparity.”v
About Flight Path, the artist wrote:
“The passage left by rolling and tumbling woven baskets are used as a metaphor to show the path women take and how heavy the load can be. Grandma was too young when she had to transition regularly down the path that led kilometres in and out of a small country town on Gomeroi/Kamilaroi Country by herself. Alone, but not alone she would step forth with a light foot. She trusted her own in-built radar and the path she would fly on by foot. Sheltered by her hiding spots along the trip, she could slip in without being seen or drawing attention. Ducking and weaving she would stay close to gullies and ditches. Listening to transiting sounds ahead as chatter and movement would reverberate and dance off the mountains and hills close by.”vi
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In 2022, Vasquez was the regional Australian Winner of the M&C Saatchi Group and Saatchi Gallery ‘Art for Change’ - a global art competition focused on breaking down barriers within creativity, diversity, equality and inclusivity in the creative industries. In 2023, Clare won First Nations Art Award at the Queensland Regional Arts Awards (QRAA), and the Hinchinbrook Art Awards - Tyto Regional Gallery Indigenous Artist Award. So far this year she’s held a solo exhibition Fibres and Vessels at the Judith Wright Centre in Brisbane, and been a finalist in the 2024 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA). Having only begun her exhibition career in 2008, Clare is already on an impressive arts career trajectory, and JCU is proud to be a supporter of her journey to national and international success.
Visitors can view Flight Path on the ground floor of the library, where it maintains a quiet and strong presence on the blue (feature) wall in the main foyer.
i Clare Jaque Vasquez, ‘Weaving with Paint’ exhibition brochure, Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts, March 2023.
ii ibid
iii ibid
iv Her Excellency the Honourable Dr Jeannette Young AC PSM, Governor of Queensland. James Cook University Investiture of Chancellor Professor Ngiare Brown, 1 June 2023. Booklet.
v James Cook University Investiture of Chancellor Professor Ngiare Brown, 1 June 2023. Booklet.
vi Clare Jaque Vasquez, Artist Statement provided to JCU Special Collections, 2023.
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