Fiona Foley
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Fiona Foley (born 1964) is an indigenous Australian woman artist from Badtjala, Fraser Island, Queensland. She studied at the Sydney College of the Arts. She has traveled as an artist internationally and to remote communities in Northern Territory. In particular visits to Raminingining inspired an awakening to culture and a conscious commitment to living on her own land in Badtjala. She was involved in establishing the Boomali Aboriginal Arts Cooperative in Sydney along with a group of prominent and politically active Aboriginal artists.
Foley uses her art to explore the tensions between sex, race and history and their various constructions. Through this process an act of dispossession and domination becomes one of perseverance and survival.
Foley's work references her unique life history as an indigenous woman growing up in regional Queensland, in a community with a living memory of their colonisation by the English. Foley's discourse of history and culture is profoundly personal as it has impacted on her family, community and remains central to her entire sense of identity.
Her art is a political statement which mocks dominant notions of Aboriginal women's sexuality which is assumed to be either non-existent or at the disposal of white masculinity.
Examples of her art demonstrate the essentially contemporary nature of her work but continually make references to traditional forms of art. The use of ochres and wood carvings express her identity. However, through a contemporary re-reading of these works she makes strong political statements about the history of Australia and the continued disempowerment of indigenous people. These dynamics are evident in each of her works as she negotiates the dichotomies of black and white, urban and rural, local and global, traditional and contemporary.
For Foley however, the political and the personal are not separate entities. Her lifestyle and art both reflect a commitment to her Aboriginal identity and challenge Australian culture to re read our history to reveal moments of strength and empowerment. Unlike Tracy Moffatt, Foley has not tried to reinvent herself as 'international' but remains aligned to her identity.
