We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art stands and recognise the creative contribution First Australians make to the art and culture of this country.
Tony Albert / Girramay/Yidinyji/Kuku Yalanji peoples, Australia b.1981 / Untitled (from ‘Welcome to Australia’ series) 2005 / Synthetic polymer paint and Texta pen on canvas / Gift of Celestine Doyle through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation 2014. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / © The artist
Tony AlbertUntitled (from ‘Welcome to Australia’ series) 2005
Not Currently on Display
Tony Albert’s ‘Welcome to Australia’ series of Texta paintings is an Indigenous take on the foundational myths of Captain Cook’s ‘discovery’ of Australia, which is part of every Australian child’s primary education. Albert parodies the authorised story of Cook’s landing 1770, and the mythologised foundations of White Australia by re-appropriating apparently neutral illustrations from a 1988 Australian Bicentennial children’s book. Images that show Cook encountering a bemused group of Aboriginal people are de-neutralised by being meticulously coloured in by an Aboriginal artist and given back to the audience with words reading – in the lower case cursive script of a school text book – ‘Welcome to Australia’.
Through Albert’s appropriation, settler myths such as that of terra nullius and the peaceful invasion and unresisted settlement of Aboriginal Australia, are exposed as cartoon accounts – fictional stories that serve to amuse children but cannot be taken seriously by intelligent adults.
Tony Albert was born in Townsville and raised in Brisbane. He is a descendant of the Girramay, Yidinji and Kuku Yalanji peoples. Albert completed a visual arts degree at Griffith University in Brisbane, majoring in Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art. He worked as an intern and exhibitions project officer at QAGOMA during the 2000s.
Albert interrogates the representation of Aboriginal people and culture through a mix of humour, darkness and poignancy. His works often recontextualise objects from his extensive collection of ‘Aboriginalia’, kitsch items featuring caricatured depictions of Aboriginal people and their culture. As a child, Albert began collecting these objects as a way of connecting with family.