Judy Watson and Helen Johnson: the read thread of history, loose ends, installation view, National Gallery of Australia, 2022.
For the red thread of history, loose ends, Helen Johnson created a series of paintings that were presented in dialogue with new works by preeminent artist and Waanyi woman, Judy Watson.
Judy Watson and Helen Johnson: the read thread of history, loose ends, installation view, National Gallery of Australia, 2022.
The exhibition was presented at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, as part of the Balnaves Contemporary Series, from 19 February – 5 June 2022.
Helen Johnson
System maintenance (verso), 2021-22
Helen Johnson
System maintenance (verso detail), 2021-22
Judy Watson and Helen Johnson: the red thread of history, loose ends, installation view, National Gallery of Australia, 2022.
Judy Watson (b.1959) is a Waanyi artist from north-west Queensland who lives and works on the Jagera/Yuggera and Turrbal Country of Meanjin/Brisbane.
Helen Johnson (b.1979) is an artist and a second generation immigrant of Anglo descent based in Naarm/ Melbourne, the Country of the Wurundjeri Woiwurrung peoples.
Helen Johnson
Restoration Australia (verso), 2021-22
Helen Johnson
Restoration Australia (verso detail), 2021-22
For the exhibition, each developed new works that speak from their individual and Ancestral cultural experiences, revealing complex and varied perspectives on the role of women in contemporary and colonial Australia.
Helen Johnson
Foundation (verso), 2021-22
Helen Johnson
Foundation (detail), 2021-22
Judy Watson and Helen Johnson: the read thread of history, loose ends, installation view, National Gallery of Australia, 2022.
“In our first extensive conversation about the project I remember Judy saying: ‘It’s a shared history and nobody gets away with it.’ That became a kind of touchstone for me. Judy and I have such different subject positions, but with the commonality of womanhood. I was thinking about the work that can be done from these perspectives and what happens when they meet, in terms of processing colonial realities. I feel like colonial Australia and contemporary Australia are one and the same thing. This is part of the continuity that runs through this exhibition and is alluded to in the title – the red thread of history.”
– Helen Johnson
Judy Watson and Helen Johnson: the read thread of history, loose ends, installation view, National Gallery of Australia, 2022
“There are parallels in the way that we look at history and try to deal with it and work with it as artists, and to bring it into our current perspectives as women and mothers, living in Australia … with the burden of what happened on this continent in terms of colonisation … there are also parallels in our artistic practice and ways of making meaning through materiality. And there’s a certain tenderness within the work. It’s a historicising of fact and research, but there’s a tender stamp of femininity too, which is very powerful. Subtle, but powerful.”
– Judy Watson
Helen Johnson
Crises (verso), 2021-22
Judy Watson and Helen Johnson: the read thread of history, loose ends, installation view, National Gallery of Australia, 2022
Judy Watson and Helen Johnson: the red thread of history, loose ends, will tour to Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, from 10 September – 12 November 2022.
View more works by Helen Johnson
This text was partially adapted from an edited transcript of a conversation held on 27 November 2021 between the artists and Tina Baum, Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at the National Gallery of Australia. Read more.
Helen Johnson is represented by Sutton Gallery, Melbourne.
Images of Judy Watson's works appear courtesy the artist, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne and Milani Gallery, Brisbane.