Anne Zahalka, The Pioneer, 1992 (printed 2021), pigment ink on rag paper mounted onto gatorboard
ANNE ZAHALKA is included in Geelong Gallery’s new exhibition Exhume the grave—McCubbin and contemporary art, opening tomorrow.
Exhume the grave includes works by contemporary Australian artists in response to Frederick McCubbin’s enduringly popular paintings. The sentiments and emotive subjects of McCubbin’s works have helped develop for them a popular visual literacy: they are images that have impressed themselves powerfully on public consciousness over time. Not surprisingly, their significant public profile has also led to these paintings being the subject of re-evaluation and reinterpretation by contemporary Australian artists, through the lens of gender, cultural diversity and inclusion.
In The Pioneer, for example, Anne Zahalka reworks the central panel of McCubbin’s triptych, removing the seated bushman to emphasise the role of women in settling the land, and to rewrite the dominant narrative of the role of men in nation-building.
This exhibition continues until 28 November and coincides with the complementary exhibition Frederick McCubbin—Whisperings in wattle boughs.