36-37, Sydney, Apr 2016, 36-37 (colour illus., detail).Įwen McDonald, AGNSW Collections, 'From Colonialism to late Modernism', pg. John Mateer, Art Monthly Australia, 'Naturalisation: recent Australian art and the natural', pg. 2), 'Millennial Icons for Australia', pg. Glenis Israel, Artwise: visual arts 7-10, Milton, 2004, 172 (colour illus.), 173.īruce James, Art Gallery of New South Wales handbook, 'Australian Collection: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art', pg. Marianne Hulsbosch (Editor), Cambridge visual arts: stage 4, Cambridge, 2008, 162 (colour illus.). Sasha Grishin, Australian art: a history, 'Indigenous art from Arnhem Land and urban Australia', pg. 114, Sydney, 2004, 114 (colour illus., detail), 115 (colour illus.).Įdmund Capon AM, OBE, Art Gallery of New South Wales: highlights from the collection, Sydney, 2008, 38-39 (colour illus, detail), 40 (colour illus.).Īnna Fern and David Llewellyn, Australia's best: artists & designers, 'Lin Onus', pg. George Alexander, Tradition today: Indigenous art in Australia, 'Lin Onus', pg. George Alexander in 'Tradition today: Indigenous art in Australia', Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2004 The pre-colonial bats seem to have taken over and reclaimed their place, in a story worthy of Alfred Hitchcock. The backyard – suburban Australia's haven of privacy – becomes spooked by the formidable presence of these noisy animals. In 'Fruit bats', the artist shows a head-on collision between two contrasting sets of values, and throws in a few inversions of his own. The work was inspired by Murrungun-Djinang imagery, which Onus was given permission to use.
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In this powerful installation, the sacred and the mundane combine.
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Beneath this icon of Australian suburbia are wooden discs with flower-like motifs, representing the bat droppings. 'Fruit bats', 1991, is made up of a flock of fibreglass sculptures of bats decorated with rarrk (crosshatching), hanging on a Hills Hoist clothes line. In Onus's sculptures, irony, wit and whimsy are the predominant features. A memorable motif in his work is the breaking up of a seamless surface into jigsaw puzzle pieces – a metaphor for the sense of dislocation he felt, caught between black and white, urban and rural, worlds. Onus's works from this period often have a riddling, Magritte-like quality. It is a virtuoso effect, in which the landscape is overlaid with traditional Indigenous iconography, reflecting his strong ties with his father's community at Cummergunja Mission, on the Murray River. Onus then developed his signature style of incorporating photorealism with Indigenous imagery. His Scottish mother was a member of the Communist Party, while his Aboriginal father, Bill, and uncle Eric were leading lights in the Aboriginal rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.Īfter a visit to Maningrida in 1986, Onus began his long and close association with the late Djinang artist, Djiwut 'Jack' Wunuwun and other central Arnhem Land artists, including John Bulunbulun.
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Onus's political commitment was inherent in his work. A self-taught artist, Onus forged a brilliant career and held exhibitions throughout the world. He worked as a mechanic and spray painter, before managing his father's boomerang workshop in Melbourne. Lin Onus was unjustly expelled from school on racist grounds at the age of 14, yet later attended university. Yorta Yorta painter, sculptor and activist, Lin Onus developed a distinctive visual language from a combination of traditional and contemporary Aboriginal imagery.