Two exhibitions from northern WA at Fremantle Arts Centre represent a pioneering wave of shows from the Kimberley, aiming to create new understandings about art from the region.

Photos Pixel Poetry.
A deluge of colour and pattern greets visitors to John Prince Siddon: All Mixed Up at Fremantle Arts Centre, with the artists’ signature palette transferred to plinths and walls to create a striking first impression urging further exploration. The paintings themselves show micro/macro depictions ‘all mixed up’ in scale, as the Fitzroy Crossing-based artist relates his perspective of life living ‘mixed up’ in two worlds in remote Australia today. He says, “we mixed up, true, let’s keep it that way!” Influenced by television, the traditional Kimberley craft of boab nut carving, at which he is adept, desert iconography and the Narrangkarni (Dreamtime), Siddon’s work is an intriguing mix of traditional/contemporary, positive/negative, and humorous/serious, with storytelling at its heart.As well as canvases, Siddon has painted on a series a kangaroo skins which have been painstakingly partly shaved. These, together with brightly painted bullock skulls, are a strange mix of the macabre and the joyful.
Commissioned by Perth Festival, the exhibition is his first major solo, allowing city audiences the opportunity to familiarise themselves with Siddon’s extraordinary practice. Curator Emilia Galatis says she believes Siddon is one of the most important artists living and working in Australia right now. “He straddles two worlds but his works talk about contemporary political and social issues while remaining true to his cultural heritage.”
A map of Australia, often included in his work, provides a vehicle for comment on colonisation, immigration, the introduction of species, and its effects on native flora and fauna and Aboriginal communities. Other works explore Aboriginal land management, global warming, the renewal and regeneration of the bush, and the reality of violent pub culture. One poignant work, set in a future where humankind has destroyed itself and the planet, animals gather in a circle to discuss what to do next. Another, completed after the devastating bush fires in Australia earlier this year, sees water people and sea inhabitants helping to put out the fires. Siddon says he worried about the animals and people fighting the fires, and still feels sad about it. “The works are about all the things I think about, all the stories trapped in my head, new ways, old ways, whatever comes to my mind.”
Galatis says Siddon’s work doesn’t fit the ‘Aboriginal art’ box, or the narrative people like to hear from remote Australia. “His work is not typical of what’s being created at Fitzroy Crossing, so he’s really pushing boundaries with strong, unique work, which I think is super brave at this time, and has the power to change the way remote artists are seen.”
