{{short description|Australian artist}} {{about |the Aboriginal Australian artist born in 1952|the deceased Aboriginal artist ({{circa}}1925–2016)|Judy Napangardi Watson}} {{Use Australian English|date=May 2020}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2020}}
{{Infobox artist | honorific_prefix = | name = Judy Watson | honorific_suffix = | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1959}} | birth_place = Mundubbera, Queensland | death_date = | death_place = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | residence = | education = | alma_mater = {{ubl|University of Tasmania|Monash University}} | known_for = Print-making, painting, installation | notable_works = | style = | movement = Contemporary Indigenous Australian art | spouse = | partner = | awards = | elected = | patrons = | memorials = | website = | module = }} '''Judy Watson''' (born 1959) is an Australian Waanyi multi-media artist who works in print-making, painting, video and installation. Her work often examines Indigenous Australian histories, and she has received a number of high-profile commissions for public spaces.
==Early life and education== Judy Watson was born in Mundubbera, Queensland in 1959. She is a Brisbane-based Waanyi artist. She was educated at the Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education In Toowoomba, where she received a Diploma of Creative Arts in 1979; at the University of Tasmania where she received a bachelor's degree (1980–82); and at Monash University, where she completed a graduate diploma in 1986. At Tasmania University she learned many techniques, among them lithography, which has influenced her entire body of work.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/channel/clip/539/|title=:: Channel :: Art Gallery NSW|website=www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au|access-date=2018-11-27|archive-date=27 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181127110555/https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/channel/clip/539/|url-status=dead}}</ref>
==Career== [[File:Reconciliation Place-Fire and Water by Judy Watson.jpg|thumb|Sculpture ''Fire and Water'' (2007) by Judy Watson at Reconciliation Place in Canberra.]] Watson trained as a print-maker, and her work in painting, video and installation often relies upon the use of layers to create a sense of different realities co-existing. As an Aboriginal Australian artist, the depiction of the land has an ongoing significance in her practice.
She won the Moët & Chandon Fellowship in 1995, allowing her to travel to France and later exhibit there.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://nga.gov.au/landscapes/Wat.htm|title=Judy Watson|website=nga.gov.au|access-date=2018-11-27|archive-date=9 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170309230031/http://nga.gov.au/landscapes/Wat.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> She represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1997, along with Yvonne Koolmatrie and Emily Kame Kngwarreye.<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/50249|title=Fluent : Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Yvonne Koolmatrie, Judy Watson : XLVII esposizione internazionale d'arte La Biennale di Venezia 1997|last1=Kngwarreye|first1=Emily Kame|last2=Perkins|first2=Hetti|last3=Watson|first3=Judy|last4=Koolmatrie|first4=Yvonne|last5=Art Gallery of New South Wales|last6=Australia Council|last7=Australia. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission|last8=Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative|last9=Biennale di Venezia 1997)|publisher=Art Gallery of New South Wales|isbn=0731304039|location=Sydney, N.S.W|year=1997}}</ref>
In 2005, for French architect Jean Nouvel's Musée du quai Branly, she constructed a site-specific work for the building along with a number of other key Aboriginal artists.<ref>{{cite web | title=Naturally In Paris | website=ArchitectureAU | date=1 September 2006 | url=https://architectureau.com/articles/naturally-in-paris/ | access-date=21 October 2021}}</ref> A film was made about the project, titled ''The French Connection''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.abc.net.au/tv/messagestick/stories/s1943739.htm|title=The French Connection| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100422223128/http://www.abc.net.au/tv/messagestick/stories/s1943739.htm| publisher= Australian Broadcasting Corporation|series= The Message Stick| archive-date=22 April 2010| date=4 June 2007}}</ref>
In 2008 Watson collaborated with Yhonnie Scarce to commemorate the escape of her great-great-grandmother Rosie from Lawn Hill Station in north-west Queensland,<ref name=tarrawarra>{{cite web | last=Reich | first=Hannah | title=Australian history put through the looking glass by Aboriginal artists Judy Watson and Yhonnie Scarce in new exhibition|website=ABC News|publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation | date=5 December 2020 | url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-05/australian-history-aboriginal-art-judy-watson-yhonnie-scarce/12943274 | access-date=4 January 2021}}</ref> where the notoriously cruel Jack Watson was known for nailing up the ears of his victims, after shooting numerous Aboriginal people.<ref>{{Citation | author1=Creaghe, Emily Caroline | author2=Monteath, Peter, 1961- | title=The diary of Emily Caroline Creaghe : explorer | date=2004 | publisher=Corkwood Press | isbn=978-1-876247-14-0}}</ref><ref name =sutton>{{citation|title=Grisly secret of cattlemen who kept '40 pairs of ears' as trophies in outback horror house|last=Sutton |first=Candace |date=8 July 2019 |publisher=news.com.au|url=https://www.news.com.au/news/grisly-secret-of-cattlemen-who-kept-40-pairs-of-ears-as-trophies-in-outback-horror-house/news-story/17022ba7691314b4cff5aadbf8511936}}</ref> For the work, the two artists cast 40 pairs of ears of volunteers and nailed them to a wall.<ref name=tarrawarra/>
Her work is often highly political, however it is rarely didactic. She describes her attitude to political art as follows:
"Art as a vehicle for invention and social change can be many things, it can be soft, hard, in-your-face confrontational, or subtle and discreet. I try and choose the latter approach for much of my work, a seductive beautiful exterior with a strong message like a deadly poison dart that insinuates itself into the consciousness of the viewer without them being aware of the package until it implodes and leaks its contents."<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Judy Watson: blood language|last=Martin-Chew|first=Louise|publisher=Miegunyah Press|year=2009}}</ref>
She was commissioned by the City of Sydney to create a major public work of art for their Eora Journey arts program. The sculpture, titled ''bara'' would be located at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney in 2020. The installation consists of a representation of ''bara'', or fish hooks made for thousands of years by women from the local Eora nation.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.cityartsydney.com.au/artwork/bara/|title=bara - City Art Sydney|work=City Art Sydney|access-date=2018-11-27|language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{cite interview | title=Public art, toppled monuments and the statue in the crate | website=ABC Radio National| series=The Art Show |format=Audio + text| others=Presented by Daniel Browning; features interview with Watson. | url=https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/the-art-show/lindy-lee-judy-watson-julie-gough-monument-lab/13593054 | access-date=21 October 2021}}</ref>
===Themes=== In the book on Watson's work, ''blood language'' (2009), her practice is divided into a number of themes: water, skin, poison, dust and blood, ochre, bones, driftnet.<ref name=":0" /> The list indicates the range of natural and cultural forms that underpin her practice.
Watson's recent work can be understood as part of the archival turn in contemporary art. She examines Indigenous Australian histories. For example, ''a preponderance of aboriginal blood'' (2005) was commissioned by the State Library of Queensland to celebrate the Queensland centenary of women's suffrage and forty years of Aboriginal suffrage. The work uses documents from the Queensland State Archives about the way Aboriginal people were precluded from voting. Before suffrage was granted in 1965, eligibility to vote was based on the percentage of Aboriginal blood, hence Watson's title to her series. The series was recently acquired by Tate Modern in London.{{citation needed|date=January 2021}}
A series of six engravings entitled ''the holes in the land'' (2015) is about the loss of Aboriginal cultural patrimony.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Best|first=Susan|date=March 2018|title=Anger and Repair: The art and politics of Judy Watson's the holes in the land (2015)|journal=Third Text|doi=10.1080/09528822.2018.1442191|s2cid=148996180}}</ref> In four of the six images Aboriginal cultural objects held in the British Museum are depicted. The title underscores the damage done to the land—the shadow, depression or blot on the landscape—removal has caused.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://collectionsearch.nma.gov.au/object/237268|title=Print titled 'the holes in the land #1', by Judy Watson|work=National Museum of Australia|access-date=2017-03-12}}</ref>
==Work== ===Solo/duo exhibitions=== *2024 mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri: Judy Watson, QAGOMA 23 Mar – 11 Aug 2024 [https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/exhibition/mudunama-kundana-wandaraba-jarribirri-judy-watson/] *2020–2021 ''Looking Glass: Judy Watson and Yhonnie Scarce'', organised by the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham in collaboration with the TarraWarra Museum of Art in Victoria and curator Hetti Perkins,<ref name="educ" /> the exhibition showed at the Ikon Gallery from 4 March to 6 September 2020,<ref>{{cite web | title=Judy Watson: 4 March — 6 September 2020| website=Ikon Gallery | url=https://www.ikon-gallery.org/event/judy-watson/ | access-date=14 December 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | last=Clugston | first=Hannah | title=Judy Watson review – pain and persecution in a lush and stunning landscape | website=The Guardian | date=5 March 2020 | url=http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/mar/05/judy-watson-review-pain-and-persecution-in-a-lush-and-stunning-landscape | access-date=14 December 2021}}</ref> and then at Turramurra from 28 November 2020 to 8 March 2021.<ref name="educ">{{cite book|first= Shannon| last=Lyons |title=Looking Glass: Judy Watson and Yhonnie Scarce: 28 November 2020 - 8 March 2021: Education kit|url=https://www.twma.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/TWMA_EduKit_LookingGlass2021_FINAL_JUNE2021.pdf |publisher=TarraWarra Museum of Art|others=Compiled by Shannon Lyons| access-date=14 December 2021}}</ref> * 2016 the names of places, Green Screen, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.ima.org.au/judy-watson-the-names-of-places/|title=Green Screen: Judy Watson: the names of places|work=Institute of Modern Art|access-date=2017-03-12|language=en-US}}</ref> * 2015 the holes in the land, grahame galleries + editions, Brisbane<ref>{{cite web | title=Judy Watson exhibition the holes in the land | website=grahame galleries + editions | url=https://grahamegalleries.com.au/judy-watson-exhibition-the-holes-in-the-land/ | access-date=14 December 2021}}</ref> * 2015 the holes in the land; heron island suite, experimental beds, Toowoomba Regional Gallery{{citation needed|date=December 2021}} * 2014 sacred ground beating heart / experimental beds / heron island suite, Noosa Regional Gallery{{citation needed|date=December 2021}} * 2013 experimental beds, Brenda May Gallery, Sydney<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.mayspace.com.au/enlarge_ex.php?workID=36208&exhibitionID=207|title=Judy Watson {{!}} experimental beds 3 {{!}} Brenda May Gallery|last=Australia|first=May Space Sydney|website=MAY SPACE Judy Watson experimental beds 3|language=en|access-date=2017-03-12}}</ref> * 2012 shell, Milani Gallery, Brisbane.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.milanigallery.com.au/exhibit/shell|title=SHELL {{!}} Milani Gallery|website=www.milanigallery.com.au|access-date=2017-03-12}}</ref> * experimental beds, University of Virginia, USA and grahame galleries + editions, Brisbane<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.grahamegalleries.com.au/index.php/judy-watson-experimental-beds|title=judy watson – experimental beds {{!}} Grahame Galleries| website=www.grahamegalleries.com.au| access-date=2017-03-12}}</ref> * 2011 - 12 waterline, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne and Embassy of Australia, Washington DC, US{{citation needed|date=December 2021}} * 2011 heron island suite, Touring Regional Galleries in Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland{{citation needed|date=December 2021}} * 2010 heron island suite, grahame galleries + editions, Brisbane.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.grahamegalleries.com.au/index.php/judy-watson-heron-island-suite|title=judy watson – heron island suite {{!}} Grahame Galleries|website=www.grahamegalleries.com.au|language=en-US|access-date=2017-03-12}}</ref> * 2009 - 12 heron island, University of Virginia, USA; grahame galleries + editions, Brisbane; and touring across Western Australia, New South Wales, and Queensland{{citation needed|date=December 2021}} * 2009 bad and doubtful debts, Milani Gallery, Brisbane.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.milanigallery.com.au/exhibit/bad-and-doubtful-debts|title=Bad and doubtful debts {{!}} Milani Gallery|website=www.milanigallery.com.au|access-date=2017-03-12}}</ref> * 2009 heron island, University of Queensland Art Museum; University of Queensland, Brisbane.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.artmuseum.uq.edu.au/content/judy-watson-heron-island|title=Judy Watson: Heron Island - UQ Art Museum - The University of Queensland, Australia|website=www.artmuseum.uq.edu.au|language=en|access-date=2017-03-12}}</ref> * 1993 Dropping into Water Slowly, Australian Girls Own Gallery, Canberra<ref name=aan/> * 1991 Inspiration – Expiration, Australian Girls Own Gallery, Canberra<ref name=aan>{{cite web |url=http://australianartnetwork.com.au/category/artists/judy-watson/?filter_types=3610 |title=Judy Watson |website=australianartnetwork.com.au |publisher=Australian Art Network |access-date=13 September 2017}}</ref>
===Major group exhibitions=== * Frames of Reference: Aspects of Feminism and Art, Artspace, 1991 * First Asia-Pacific Triennale of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery, 1993<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/the-1st-asia-pacific-triennial-of-contemporary-art-apt1|title=The 1st Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT1)|last=QAGOMA|website=www.qagoma.qld.gov.au|language=en|access-date=2017-03-12}}</ref> * Antipodean Currents: Ten Contemporary Artists from Australia, Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1995<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/23/arts/art-review-antidotes-for-a-cartoonish-image.html|title=ART REVIEW; Antidotes for a Cartoonish Image|last=Karmel|first=Pepe|date=1995-06-23|work=The New York Times|access-date=2017-03-12|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> * A Gift to the World: The Australian Indigenous Art Commission at the Musée du quai Branly, Australian Indigenous Art Commission, 2005 * Cultural Warriors, Indigenous Art Triennale, National Gallery of Australia, 2007 * Reclaim the Earth, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2022
===Public collections=== * Art Gallery of New South Wales<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/watson-judy/|title=Judy Watson :: The Collection :: Art Gallery NSW|website=www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au|access-date=2017-03-12}}</ref> * National Gallery of Australia<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://nga.gov.au/landscapes/Wat.htm|title=Judy Watson|website=nga.gov.au|access-date=2017-03-12}}</ref> * Queensland Art Gallery<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/goma10hub/artists/judy-watson|title=Judy Watson|last=QAGOMA|website=www.qagoma.qld.gov.au|language=en|access-date=2017-03-12}}</ref> * Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.mca.com.au/collection/artist/watson-judy/|title=Judy Watson|website=Museum of Contemporary Art Australia|language=en-GB|access-date=2017-03-12}}</ref> * Tate Modern, London * National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/1751/|title=Untitled {{!}} Judy Watson~Waanyi {{!}} NGV {{!}} View Work|website=www.ngv.vic.gov.au|language=en-AU|access-date=2017-03-12}}</ref> * Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart *Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington<ref>{{Cite web |title=Collections Online - Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa |url=https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/1530907 |access-date=2024-08-28 |website=collections.tepapa.govt.nz}}</ref>
===Awards and nominations=== * Moet and Chandon Fellowship 1995 * National Gallery of Victoria's Clemenger Art Award 2006 * Works on Paper Award at the 23rd National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Awards 2006
=== Legacy ===
* In 2011 Judy Watson was interviewed in a digital story and oral history for the State Library of Queensland's James C Sourris AM Collection.<ref>{{Cite web |title=James C Sourris AM Collection |url=https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/research-collections/art-and-design/james-c-sourris-am-collectio |website=State Library of Queensland}}</ref> In the interview Watson talks to writer Louise Martin-Chew about her art practice, her family and the future of Aboriginal art in Australia.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Judy Watson digital story, educational interview and oral history. |url=http://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/permalink/f/1oppkg1/slq_alma21276824090002061 |access-date=18 May 2022 |website=Judy Watson digital story, educational interview and oral history.}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * [https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/watson-judy/ Collection of Judy Watson's works] * [http://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/permalink/f/1oppkg1/slq_alma21276824090002061 Judy Watson digital story, educational interview and oral history]. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, 31 May 2011. Artist Judy Watson talks to Louise Martin-Chew about her art practice, her family and the future of Aboriginal art in Australia. (6min, 29min and 1:05hr version available to view online).
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Watson, Judy}} Category:1959 births Category:Living people Category:Artists from Queensland Category:Australian Aboriginal artists Category:20th-century Australian women artists Category:20th-century Australian artists Category:21st-century Australian women artists Category:21st-century Australian artists Category:Monash University alumni Category:University of Tasmania alumni Category:Australian printmakers Category:Women's Art Register artists