About the Artist
Dr Deanne Gilson is a Proud Wadawurrung artist, Blak Designer, Cultural Educator, mum to Blair and Max and Nan to Arlo.

Gilson’s practice is inspired by daily walks on Wadawurrung Dja (Country), the birds from her Creation Story, including the Indigenous trees, bush foods and healing plants. She seeks to reclaim back and give a voice to her ancestral knowledge, that was interrupted by colonisation, including that of her matriarchal women. Overturning issues created by the male and female gaze, with the aim to create new pathways for Indigenous women to tell their stories from a place of truth-telling and equality that have not previously been heard. By doing so, Gilson is an advocate for strengthening the voices of future generations, leaving a cultural map that extends the sharing of knowledge through yarning, painting, making from Country, with the notion she is overlooked by the guidance of her ancestors.

She completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Hons) and a Diploma of Education at Federation University, along with a Master of Arts and a PhD by research at Deakin University, in Victoria. Alternatively working across three main series in the last twenty years, coining the phrases and titles, the Cultural Trees of Knowledge, Baskets of knowledge and Post Preston, After the Appropriation all ongoing series.

Her award-winning arts practice has spanned over four decades and has seen many artworks collected here and abroad, with some highlights including the National Gallery of Victoria, the Koorie Heritage Trust, Naarm, the Art Gallery of Ballarat, the National Wool Museum, the University of Melbourne, Bundoora Homestead, Shepparton Art Museum, Australian Catholic University, Monash and Deakin University, to name a few.

About the Artwork
Woven baskets are placed around a camp fire, represented here as a metaphor for the body, skin, kin and the cultural knowledge they hold. Holding the traditional knowledges from my matriarchal women and ancestors, as well as my own life experiences. The background has been created using black charcoal from my mum Marlene Gilson’s fire, her story embedded within. The painting takes on a ceremonial aspect with smoke still present in the smell of the painting, Country is seen an felt. Along with natural ochre pigments I have sourced on Wadawurrung Dja and 23 Karat gold leaf, representing the gold fields where I live, alongside the knowledge and people as the true gold. The hovering birds are messengers taken from my Creation Story and are the keepers of their own stories, with the Corella being the keeper of the fire. Through the hands of the women weaving grasses, gathering bush foods and healing plants as they go about their daily life, culture is passed down to their children and continued.