For me, national identity feels a lot like personal identity — a mix of half-truths, proud moments, myths, and memories that don’t always line up. In this collection, I’ve been re-examining who I am by looking closer at who we are, as a country. It’s not a straight line. I’m pulling apart the stories we’ve been told — some romantic, some ridiculous, some deeply moving — and holding them up next to the historical facts. There’s a fair bit of contradiction in there, and a good dose of dry humour too. I’ve drawn on the bold visual language of Australian painters like Boyd, Nolan, Tucker, Drysdale and Whiteley — those larrikin brush-strokers who weren’t afraid to stir the pot. We’ve long clung to the myth that we’re a bush-born people, yet we’ve been mostly urban since the 1800s. We’re told Captain Cook “discovered” Australia, yet this land has held Indigenous cultures for over 60,000 years. This work is a small step in a longer reckoning — with history, with storytelling, and with what it really means to call this place home.
