Figure 1
string over water (walkurrji kingkarri wanami) (detail), 2019
261 x 180.5 cm acrylic, graphite, pastel, watercolour pencil on canvas
© Judy Watson
Figure 2
great artesian basin springs, the gulf (jiwil, wanami), 2019
212 x 169 cm indigo, acrylic, graphite on canvas
© Judy Watson
1We have the great pleasure of opening this special issue on Alexis Wright’s oeuvre with two beautiful art works by Judy Watson. Connections with Carpentaria can be established with both string over water (walkurrji kingkarri wanami) and great artesian basin springs, the gulf (jiwil, wanami), in particular with Watson’s unique representation of water – water sovereignty, movement and connections – and use of string. “[A] tangible link to the unbroken practice of string making” (Strzelecki), the string recalls the continuation of cultural and sovereign practices “older than time itself” in Carpentaria (Wright 2008, 114) and evokes the characters “following the old ones travelling their country to at least a thousand sites they knew by memory” (30). string over water (walkurrji kingkarri wanami) also recalls the ethics of renewal and recycling that are deployed in Carpentaria: by Angel to create Number One House, Norm in his fish taxidermy, and Will on the floating island of rubbish. The surfacing presence of the string – as one of the “tools of survival” (Watson quoted in Strzelecki) Judy Watson wanted to depict – evokes a violent and painful history, as her great great grandmother escaped a massacre by hiding underwater and breathing through reeds (Clugston 2020).
- 1 This sentence was included in the original version of a review of Carpentaria that Michele Grossman (...)
2With great artesian basin springs, the gulf (jiwil, wanami), Watson’s superimposition of representations of the Gulf of Carpentaria and its flows creates a palimpsest, a complex, layered work that draws connections between site and memory and resonates with the multi-stranded, interconnected narrative layers of Wright’s Carpentaria. Michele Grossman highlighted that in Carpentaria, “Wright reveals with great skill and generosity why any white Australian conception of Indigenous interests in rights to land and country that stops at the shoreline is deeply flawed and ultimately fatal.”1 So does Judy Watson in great artesian basin springs, the gulf (jiwil, wanami).
3We hope that readers will form their own interpretations of Judy Watson’s works and establish other connections with Alexis Wright’s works.
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