Artist Statement 2021
The beauty of the natural world and its capacity to profoundly inspire creativity has been a fascination for me, for as long as I can remember. Fond childhood memories include walking beach tracks and exploring the habitats of local forests, where on large sandstone boulders, I drew marks with local stone or bark or using my fingers sketched out on the soft dirt patterns and images from my childhood imagination. Now, looking back years later after completing a BSc then a Ph.D. in the study of Indigenous Australian art along with a few informal art courses on painting and drawing, these earlier interests have found expression in a range of academic articles on Australian Indigenous contemporary art, in art monographs, in publications on art in the non-academic press and my own emergent art practice. I have worked with the Tree Veneration Society since 2010.
Recent publications include:
- University of Wollongong, 2017, Arnhem Land Bark Painting: The Western Reception 1850–1990. PhD Dissertation. https://ro.uow.edu.au/theses1/399/
- Arts 2019, ‘Cultural Tourism: Imagery of Arnhem Land Bark Paintings Informs Australian Messaging to the Post-War USA’. 8(2), 66; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts8020066
- World Art 2019, ‘Bark Painting of Arnhem Land, Australia: The Western reception 1960-1990’. https://doi.org/10.1080/21500894.2019.1694063
- Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, December 2020. ‘Ulli Beier, The Aboriginal Arts Board and Aboriginal Self Determination’. https://doi.org/10.1080/14434318.2020.1837380.
- The Making of Indigenous Australian Contemporary Art. Arnhem Land Bark Painting 1970-1990, 2020, Cambridge Scholars, UK .
- Arts 2021,‘ Contemporary Indigenous Australian Art and Native Title Land Claim’.10, 32. https://doi.org/10.3390/arts10020032
Experiments in watercolour, 2020, watercolour on paper
Facebook: @Marie.Geissler
Instagram: @geissler1234