Darebin Art Collection

In Taurgurong Country; View of Yea, Gwen Garoni (1933-2014) celebrates the landscape of her Taurgurong country, offering a personal perspective and artistic vision formed by an intimate knowledge and deep connection to the land. The vibrant hues of the distant mountains and the lushness of the uncleared land reveal a spiritual beauty that speaks of a time long before colonial settlement.

Aunty Gwen Garoni was a respected Victorian Koori Elder and a descendant of the Taungurong people of north-east Victoria. Her work reflects upon the significance of place, family connections and cultural identity. Her art is grounded in her love of country and explores the Australian landscape, ancestral memories and early colonial history.

Garoni was a winner of the DATSICC emerging artist award for the Gumbri White Dove Acquisitive Prize (2006 and 2010), a finalist in the Victorian Indigenous Art Awards (2006 and 2007) and a finalist in the ANL Maritime Art Prize (2009 and 2011). Her artwork is held in public and private collections.

Taurgurong Country; View of Yea © Gwen Garoni

Campsite in Springtime is a richly colourful and vibrant expression of respect for ancestors and reflects the importance of Country in Koori life. Working within landscape depictions of her Gunditjmara tribal lands, and ancestral memories, Frances Gallagher contemplates the significance of place, family connections, spirituality and social displacement.

Clearing the land for agricultural purposes and the spread of urban centres has substantially diminished, from much of the public consciousness, the intense cultural mapping by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people throughout Australia. The impact of white settlement caused Indigenous people to move, or be moved, from their traditional lands and dramatically disrupted their way of life.

Aunty Frances Gallagher is a respected Victorian Koori Elder who was born in Bendigo in 1926 and is from the Gunditjmara people of Western Victoria. She was one in a family of eight children brought up on Framlingham Mission, an Aboriginal reserve established on the south-west coast of the state in 1861 by the Board for the Protection of Aborigines. Gallagher has participated in numerous group shows including exhibitions at Melbourne Museum, Koorie Heritage Trust, Bundoora Homestead Art Centre, Boscia Gallery and RMIT School of Art Gallery.

Campsite In Springtime © Frances Gallagher

Tama TK Favell's Rarohenga is a lino print that honours their transgender father Mase, who was a dearly loved elder in the Darebin trans/queer community. Rarohenga was one of the winning works of the 2013 Darebin Art Prize and subsequently acquired into the collection. Favell received the 2012 Print Council of Australia Commission and exhibited at the 2013 Melbourne Now exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria.

War Widows is part of a series of paintings and sketches that were included in Mary Hammond’s solo exhibition, Coming and Going, held at Bundoora Homestead Art Centre in 2010. The exhibition, a major retrospective of Hammond’s work from the mid-1970s - 2009, focussed on her everyday depiction of people within the City of Darebin

War Widows also featured in Legacy (2015), an exhibition curated by Bundoora Homestead Art Centre acknowledging the participation, contribution and sacrifice made by members of the Darebin community during the Great War (WWI). She has also participated in two major group shows curated by Bundoora Homestead Art Centre: The River (2011) and Northern Lights (2013).

In Preston Market, Saturday late, Mary Hammond captures the hustle and bustle of the end of week trading at Preston Market. The diversity of Darebin’s citizenry is shown almost as a group portrait; a chaotic scene of shoppers milling round with bags of varying size and colour as they hurry to get the best bargains of the day.

Mary Hammond is a social observer. She depicts the lives of ordinary people going about their everyday tasks. Themes of feminism and social justice pervade her work. She is fascinated by the role of women caring for their families and shopping is a major theme. Hammond’s eye for detail is intimate and personal; she sketches and paints real people enabling us to examine, with compassion, the community in which we live.

Hammond’s artwork is held in private and public collections including the Australian War Memorial, State Library of Victoria and Artbank.

Preston Market, Saturday late © Mary Hammond

On the Way captures a moment in time as three women pass each other in front of an assortment of colourfully painted shops along the main shopping strip in High Street, Northcote. Dressed in bright winter clothes and sensible shoes, the shoppers have a distinct look about them: one strides purposefully towards her destination pushing her jeep in a determined fashion, another checks the contents of her trolley as she manoeuvres it around, while a third, holding a canvas bag, stands quite still as she tries to decide which way to go next.

Mary Hammond is a social observer. She depicts the lives of ordinary people going about their everyday tasks. Themes of feminism and social justice pervade her work. She is fascinated by the role of women caring for their families and shopping is a major theme. Hammond’s eye for detail is intimate and personal; she sketches and paints real people enabling us to examine, with compassion, the community in which we live.

Hammond’s artwork is held in private and public collections including the Australian War Memorial, State Library of Victoria and Artbank.

On the Way © Mary Hammond