The Blacktown City Art Prize 2016.
I was honored to accept the prize for overall winner of this lovely award, on the night of the 2nd December 2016.
Lilu Stands to Izzie depicts my son's dog, Lilu, and my model Isabella Foster (Izzie), posing in a colonial garden, in Kempton, about forty minutes north of Hobart, Tasmania. Among the early 'owners' of this property were some who were renowned for their Hunt Balls, which were attended on occasion by one Errol Flynn. Other long past 'owners' are also, somewhat less so, known for their other hunting, as sport and reprisal, of Tasmanian Aboriginal people prior to and during the Black War.
Lilu Stands to Izzie is a work from a series I produced in response to my readings about the war and the use of roo hounds, a mixture of stag and grey hound, favored for their superior chasing down of kangaroos, by early farmers and then, also, by the Aboriginal Tasmanians.
Once these facts are discovered one cannot merely stroll in these Tasmanian midlands, without being aware of what has occurred.
Here, we see Izzie, a modern day, watchful, but stern Diana, with her excited hound at the ready.