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Collection

An image of Mary Mumbulla and Murri Craigie by Brenda L Croft

Brenda L Croft

(Australia 1964– )

Language group
Gurindji, Fitzmaurice region , Mutpurra, Fitzmaurice region
Title
Mary Mumbulla and Murri Craigie, from the series The Big Deal is Black
Year
1993
Media category
Photograph
Materials used
R3 colour photograph
Dimensions

99.5 x 120.5cm sight; 100.8 x 121.4 x 2.0cm frame

Signature & date
Not signed. Not dated.
Credit
Purchased 1993
Accession number
391.1993
Copyright
© Brenda L. Croft. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney
Location
Yiribana Gallery
Further information

Brenda L. Croft works closely with family, friends and Indigenous community members in Sydney to create her images. In both 'Shane Phillips and Noel Collett, Eveleigh Street, Redfern', 1992, and 'Mary Mumbulla and Murri Craigie', 1993, the subjects look straight at the camera and at the viewer, directly and candidly returning our gaze.

'Shane Phillips and Noel Collett, Eveleigh Street, Redfern' was originally part of a collaborative work entitled 'Conference Call', 1992, made with internationally renowned African-American artist and activist Adrian Piper and exhibited at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, in the 1992 Biennale of Sydney. Croft's photographs were taken in Redfern, Sydney, and Collett and Phillips stand at the top of Eveleigh Street wearing the jerseys of the Redfern All Blacks, the rugby league team that is a source of local pride. Contrary to the usual media depictions of this area, Croft presents a positive image of urban Indigenous communities in her strongly individual photographs of people and place, taken from an insider's viewpoint.

'Mary Mumbulla and Murri Craigie' is from 'The Big Deal is Black', 1993, a series of photographs of Aboriginal women and their families, taken at their homes. The personal becomes political both in the intimacy of the photographer's relationship with the families, and the strong and confident sense of self-imaging in these works. While Croft does not appear in these photographs, in depicting networks of her family and friends she has created a form of self-portrait. 'The Big Deal is Black' was first exhibited at the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney, accompanied by audiotapes in which the subjects discussed the personal and collective memories that had shaped their lives.

Since 1998, Croft has worked with digital media to create images that layer photographs and text, exploring more directly autobiographical subject matter. History and personal memory intersect in the series 'In my mother's garden', 1998, and 'In My Father's House', 1998, which use family snapshots, religious and other imagery and language to consider Croft's experience of growing up in the suburbs with a white mother and an Aboriginal father who was stolen from his parents at the age of two under the government policy that allowed for the removal of Indigenous children from their families.

Croft wrote in the Biennale of Sydney catalogue:
'By placing myself behind the camera I am taking control of my self image and images of ourselves. I cannot, do not, take sole responsibility but challenge and attempt to reverse the expected.'

Wayne Tunnicliffe in 'Tradition today: Indigenous art in Australia', Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2004

© Art Gallery of New South Wales

Bibliography (3)

Deborah Edwards, Daphne Wallace, Margo Neale, Victoria Lynn and Sandra Byron, Review: works by women from the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales 1995, List of works, Domain, 1995, 19.

Hannah Fink, One sun one moon: Aboriginal art in Australia, ‘Self-evident: Indigenous artists and the photographic image’, pg. 310-321, Sydney, 2007, 318, 319 (colour illus.).

Wayne Tunnicliff, Tradition today: Indigenous art in Australia, 'Brenda L. Croft', pg. 42, Domain, 2004, 42, 43 (colour illus.).

Exhibition history (6)

Recent Acquisitions of Aboriginal Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 05 Jul 1993–12 Sep 1993

Review - works by women from the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 08 Mar 1995–04 Jun 1995

Another Country, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 04 Jul 1999–02 Apr 2000

Points of view: Australian photography 1985-95, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 19 Nov 2005–29 Jan 2006

unknown:

Boomalli: 20 years on, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 01 Sep 2007–28 Oct 2007