Ancestors Footsteps | Joshua Bonson

ANCESTOR’S FOOTSTEPS Cooee Art Leven www.artleven.com

COOEE ART LEVEN

JOSHUA BONSON 14.12.23 - 13.01.24

17 Thurlow Street, Redfern, Sydney

Gadigal land belonging to the Eora nation

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ANCESTOR’S FOOTSTEPS | JOSHUA BONSON

14.12.23 - 13.01.2024

OPENING | THURSDAY 14th DECEMBER “I dedicate my art and stories to my elders.

My grandparents Donald Bonson and Victoria Bonson nee Villaflor.

My great grandparents Gurio Villaflor and Johannah Lu Lu Villaflor nee Roe, Don Bonson Sr and Patimah Bonson nee Ahmat.

This year I travelled for the first time to the Torres Strait where my great grandparents were born, a place I have been told stories about but had never experienced myself. A journey I shared with my father Gregory, my sister Jessie Victoria and her husband Giuseppe.

The minute I was flying over the ocean heading to the islands I could feel my ancestors with me. We were all filled with excitement and joy. The colours of the ocean, the land and the sky it leaves you speechless. The magic of these islands and the people who live there, a wonderful place that is full of beauty and history.”

In may of 2023, Joshua Bonson visited his ancestral home in the Torres Strait for the first time, yet the journey was as much a homecoming as it was an Introduction.

Bonson’s artistic practice contains a sense of yearning along with the celebration of his history. When at work in his oceanfacing Darwin studio, it is as though, with each dynamic brushstroke, the artist sends a piece of himself in the roiling tides across the Arafura Sea. It may have been his first corporeal journey to the home of his ancestors, but a part of

Bonson has always existed on the Islands, on each slick scale on the back of his totemic saltwater crocodile, and in the spray of each wave lapping at the Islands’ coasts.

If Darwin is his present, then the Torres Strait represents his past, and the sea he evokes in his work is the body connecting the two, perhaps his truest home. At minimum, it is the place Bonson inhabits in his artistic practice.

Those familiar with Joshua Bonson’s work will recognise his style from a mile away. With paintbrushes, pallet-knives, and often his bare hands as his tools, he brings the ocean to life in thick swaths of rhythmic pattern. Each mark simultaneously represents the scaly skin of his saltwater crocodile, as well as the pulsing waves of the Arafura sea. As the paint folds over itself in rich tones, it seems as though created by natural force.

Depending on season, time and mood (both of the ocean and the artist) these works have lives of their own. The surface may shimmer in greyscale, as though the blackest depths of the sea reflect liquid moon-glow. Other times, we see the dramatic reds of sunset or the cold inviting aquatic blues and greens, almost always with a scattering of white spray of saltwater.

Almost every painting of the last half decade is precluded with the word ‘SKIN’. At face value the title refers to the scales of his totem crocodile. Further, ‘SKIN’ may define the work as a self portrait, a momentary glimpse of the artist himself. Bonson invites us to float above the ocean and peer down. Reflected in the moving surface is a fleeting spiritual portrait - fractured among salty mist of water and flickering light - of the artist Joshua Bonson, just in that moment.

“I am proud to present Standing in my Ancestor’s Footsteps Art for me is a conversation.

A conversation and connection the viewer has with the work. A personal experience.

It is about people, places and history.

It is also about memory; remembering and celebrating family. “

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STANDINGINMY ANCESTOR’SFOOTSTEPS

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ANCESTOR’S FOOTSTEPS | JOSHUA BONSON 4

JOSHUA BONSON SKIN: Shifting Tides | 2023 acylic on canvas | 126 x 96 cm

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JOSHUA BONSON SKIN: A Celebration of Culture | 2023 acylic on canvas | 160 x 120 cm

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ANCESTOR’S FOOTSTEPS | JOSHUA BONSON 6

JOSHUA BONSON SKIN: Arafura Sea | 2023 acylic on canvas | 94 x 69 cm

JOSHUA BONSON SKIN: Oceans Rhythm | 2023 acylic on canvas | 94 x 70 cm

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JOSHUA BONSON SKIN: Koedal – Saltwater Crocodile | 2023 acylic on canvas | 75 x 60 cm

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ANCESTOR’S FOOTSTEPS | JOSHUA BONSON 8

JOSHUA BONSON SKIN: My Totem | 2023 acylic on canvas | 126 x 96 cm

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JOSHUA BONSON SKIN: My Totem | 2023 acylic on canvas | 126 x 96 cm

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10 ANCESTOR’S FOOTSTEPS | JOSHUA BONSON

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JOSHUA BONSON SKIN: A Celebration of my Country | 2023 acylic on canvas | 129 x 160 cm

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ANCESTOR’S FOOTSTEPS | JOSHUA BONSON 12

JOSHUA BONSON SKIN: Ocean Currents | 2023 acylic on canvas | 120 x 100 cm

JOSHUA BONSON SKIN | 2023 acylic on canvas | 25.4 x 25.4 cm

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JOSHUA BONSON SKIN | 2023 acylic on canvas | 25.4 x 25.4 cm

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ANCESTOR’S FOOTSTEPS | JOSHUA BONSON 14

JOSHUA BONSON SKIN | 2023 acylic on canvas | 120 x 100 cm

JOSHUA BONSON SKIN | 2023 acylic on canvas | 94 x 71 cm

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JOSHUA BONSON SKIN | 2023 acylic on canvas | 94 x 70 cm

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JOSHUA BONSON Born | Country | Region |

1988 Jawoyn & Kala Lagaw Ya Torres Strait Islands & Far North Queensland

‘In our culture, there is a connection between people and families; kinship that can’t be described or translated in English. I capture those ties in my works, with my markings and the strokes of the brush.

My heritage guides the stories captured. Textured streaks of acrylic create an element of flow, scaled perfection, they tell a personal story .... a portrayal of uniqueness, solidarity, and an acknowledgement of bloodlines.’

Joshua Bonson SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2023 2021 2018 2014 2013 2012 2011

SKIN, Celebration of Culture, Cooee Art Leven To Connect - To Open Windows, Cooee Art Gallery, Redfern, NSW SKIN, Cooee Art Gallery, Paddington, NSW SKIN, ReDot Fine Art Gallery, Singapore SKIN, 24hour Art, Darwin, NT SKIN, Harvison Gallery, Perth, WA SKIN, Harvison Gallery, Perth, WA

ANCESTOR’S FOOTSTEPS | JOSHUA BONSON

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

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2022 2021 2020

2019 2018

2014

2013 2013 2013 2011 2010 2008 2007

Paul Johnstone Gallery Darwin NT NOTFAIR 2021 Melbourne, VIC Sydney Contemporary 2020, Cooee Gallery, NSW Finalist: The Alice Prize, NT 20/20 Group exhibition – 20 Artists from across Australia 2020 – Cooee Gallery NSW Sydney Contemporary, NSW Cooee Gallery Light, Bright and White , Cooee Gallery, Sydney, NSW Connections Exhibition: - Power House Museum, Sydney, NSW Garrmalang Festival Darwin, Group Exhibition, Darwin Entertainment Centre, NT 2015 Churchie Art Award, Brisbane, QLD 135th Meridian East, Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Lion Arts Centre, SA Finalist: 30th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award - NT City of Albany Art Prize, Albany, WA Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Lion Arts Centre, Adelaide, SA Winner: Togart Contemporary Art Award, Darwin, NT Melbourne Art Fair, VIC KBG Finalist: 25th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait IslanderArt Award – NT Finalist: 24th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait IslanderArt Award – NT

COMMISSIONS TOGA Group PTY LTD TOGA Group Vibe Hotel, Germany Rydges Hotel, Palmerston, NT University of Sydney AMMRF – University Collection COX Architects, Canberra, ACT AWARDS + GRANTS 2020 2015 2015 2014

2013 2013 2013 2011 2008 2007

FINALIST The Alice Prize, NT Scholarship at Bundanon Trust Artist Retreat, NSW FINALIST Churchie Art Award, Brisbane, QLD WINNER Young Achievers Award NT WINNER Young Achievers Award NT - Artist of the year WINNER Top End NAIDOC Artist of the Year FINALIST City of Albany Contemporary Art Prize, WA 30th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, NT WINNER TOGART Contemporary Art Award, NT 25th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, NT 24th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, NT

SELECTED COLLECTIONS National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, ACT Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth, WA TOGA Contemporary Art Collection Australia & Berlin Art Bank Collection, Sydney, NSW PricewaterhouseCoopers, Perth, WA H.M & R.A Horton Collection, QLD & New Zealand / Art Gallery of NSW Somerville Community Services Inc Collection. NT Arthur Roe Collection, VIC Wheelock Properties Collection, Singapore Peter Cooke Collection, QLD Churchie Collection, Brisbane, QLD The Owen and Wagner Collection / Hood Museum of Art

ON PARALLEL FLOW Cooee Art Leven is proud to present two solo exhibitions: Joshua Bonson: Ancestor’s Footsteps and Joanne Currie Nalingua - It Flows While on view simultaneously, each is its own body of work, created entirely independent of one another. Still, the parallels are striking. At surface level, both artists depict bodies of water, each of them deeply significant to their respective history and connection to Country.

The artists’ respective subjects - the Maranoa River for Currie Nalingua and the Arafura Sea for Bonson - act as containers of memory, personal and ancestral. For Joanne Currie, the river links back to childhood, “growing up living on the banks of the Maranoa river at the ‘Yumba’ (East Mitchell Aboriginal Settlement)”*. For Bonson, the Arafura sea connects his home in Darwin to his ancestral Country in the Torres Strait.

ANCESTOR’S FOOTSTEPS | JOSHUA BONSON

In both cases, the subject offers a fleeting self portrait in the water’s reflection, like an ever-moving and refracting mirror, containing within itself a history that reaches back generations. As the viewer, we are invited to participate: Bonson leads us charging over the tumultuous Arafura sea on the back of his totem, the saltwater crocodile.

Joanne Currie invites us to the bank of the Maranoa, where we may kneel and lean out over the water, as far as we can before tipping over; briefly we glimpse a reflection in the rippling surface.

The minute I was flying over the ocean heading to the islands I could feel my ancestors with me. Every painting is a celebration of heritage, a piece of The Torres Strait and carries its own personality.

- Joshua Bonson

I’ve always painted about the Maranoa area, the traditional designs found on shields and artefacts, the lines and colours of the river…I try to keep it simple…clean and sharp!

- Joanne Currie Nalingua 18

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PROUDLY SPONSORED BY MUNDA WINES Ancient soils, ancient culture.

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