Publication
Publication
Bruce McLean, Diane Hafner
80 pages paperback colour and black-and-white illustrations | RRP $29.95
Joe Alimindjin Rootsey was one of the first Indigenous people in Queensland to be recognised as a contemporary artist. An inveterate sketcher, Rootsey’s artistic leanings were discovered by medical social worker Joan Innes Reid during a period of hospitalisation in north Queensland in the mid 1950s. In 1958, he began classes at Brisbane’s Central Technical College, then the leading art school in Queensland. While he wanted ‘to make something of it’, Rootsey’s art career was shadowed by ill health and government intervention. His paintings are a window onto another Australia — his own country on Cape York.
This richly illustrated publication features essay contributions from curator Bruce McLean and anthropologist Dr Diane Hafner, exploring Rootsey’s life as a stockman, his career as an artist, and the prevailing social and political conditions of the time. This is the first publication on the artist, whose work was first shown to acclaim in the Queensland Art Gallery’s exhibition ‘Story Place: Indigenous Art of Cape York and the Rainforest’ in 2003.
This exhibition catalogue is available from the Gallery Store and online.
