Julie Dowling Art Essay

Julie Dowling is one of Australia’s best known contemporary artists. Born in 1969 as a white-skinned Aboriginal in the Perth suburb of Subiaco and growing up in the outer bushland suburb of Redcliffe, Dowling faced many rejections and abuse throughout her childhood which is conveyed in her artwork. As an artist, Dowling concerns herself with the ideology of Aboriginal identity and their ancestors’ perspective of Australian history. Consciously merging the art styles of European and indigenous conventions into her work, Dowling establishes the links between her background and that of her relatives. Dowling draws upon many experiences, but mostly from what she describes as “...a culturally disposed family..” Julie Dowling, being apart of the Badimia language Aboriginal group, having a single mother, and living of welfare payments, is a product of generations of displaced and rejected women and thus through her artwork highlights the issues which were faced by thousands of aboriginal women through the “White-Australia” period. As an artist, Dowling incorporates different concepts to convey her ideas, including Renaissance art and Western Art. Her work is strictly intimate and therefore the meanings conveyed are often easy to make sense of. Dowling’s work has been described as ethnography, recording the injustices and discrimination against Aboriginal people. As part of her art education, Dowling was awarded a Diploma of Fine Art at Claremont School of Art in 1989, a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Curtin University in 1992, an Associate Diploma in Visual Arts Management at Perth Metropolitan TAFE in 1995 and Honorary Doctorate in Literature (Painting) from Murdoch University 2002. Throughout her career, Dowling has exhibited her works at national and international levels, which include art galleries such as notably at Art Fair Cologne in 1997, Beyond the Pale: Contemporary Indigenous Art.

3) Julie Dowling uses events of the past and particularly the history of