Julie Dowling Analysis

JULIE DOWLING KAT BATES

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Historical Context

Indigenous Australian artist, Julie Dowling (b. 1969) was born in Subiaco, Western Australia. Dowling’s upbringing was in semi-rural and urban areas of Redcliffe, Sydney, with a large extended family of impoverished Badimaya and Yamtji, Irish/Scottish Roman Catholics. She often went “bush hunting” with her grandmother, finding old books, bibles, health manuals and such. “That’s how I learned about art. It was a form of gathering information on the fringe, learning from it, know you have intelligence but not being able to access it.” Says Dowling. Her heritage of Badimaya and Yamtji aboriginal decent was recognised early in her work,

Examples of this include European portraiture and Christian icons, mural paints, the use of dotting and indigenous Australian iconography. Her values include her community, family and culture. These values are recognised in her works. “Julie Dowling adopts her own ‘disobedient’ style in her quest to represent the human figure through the traditions of portraiture” (reference to quote). As her work is a unique fusion of arts, such as traditional Europeans and indigenous Australia painting as well as combining social realism, surrealism and 60s pop art consisting of motifs from contemporary aboriginal painting in her

Excerpts from the Lord 's Prayer float and flicker against the cobalt blue background. There is a contrast seen between the detailed section of the young girls face that uses elements of tone and shadowing to create depth and a sense of realness. The line work in this piece consists of dotting which symbolises the traditional art style. This dotted line is repeated throughout the work to create depth through colour and layering of different colours on top of others. This then creates a sense of patterning to the work. The dotted lines create organic curves and waves in the work, being symbolic of the ocean. The words threaded in the gaps of these waves, painted in white are excepts from a Christian