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< Previous8 Foreword The notion of coming together has never been more relevant. Bayside has an abiding commitment to reconciliation and a vision to nurture the inherent creativity of our community by celebrating artistic expression. This paves the way for a vibrant, connected community working together to create a better future for all Australians. The Ellen José Art Award for young women encompasses these shared values. This unique triennial award is the frst of its kind, encompassing a $15,000 non-acquisitive prize, designed to support young female artists in the early stages of their career. The award is held in honour of Ellen José, a pioneering indigenous artist, radical activist and social justice campaigner who lived in the Bayside suburb of Black Rock for over 25 years. Ellen’s deep connection to Bayside continues through her family and the Ellen José Memorial Foundation, led by her husband Dr. Joseph Toscano. Her son Joshua Toscano is currently Chair of the Reconciliation Advisory Committee which provides important guidance to Council. This exhibition brings together six fnalists from across the nation, who exude talent and creative vision. By supporting this award, we aim to foster creative freedom and license for artists to gain recognition and professional development. This in turn, provides our community with creative spaces to enjoy and opportunities to gain a greater insight and appreciation of arts and culture, bringing us one step closer to realising the aspirations of our Bayside 2050 Community Vision. Bayside City Council is proud to partner with the Ellen José Memorial Foundation on this award and recognises its signifcance within the arts and culture and indigenous communities. I commend the Ellen José Memorial Foundation and Joanna Bosse, Curator of Bayside Gallery, on this initiative, which celebrates and supports the future generation of artists. Cr Alex del Porto Mayor Bayside City Council 2022 Elham Eshraghian-Haakansson (still) 2022 مرزهای مکان edges of place two channel video installation with sound and analogue television, 17:14 min. Courtesy the artist 9 In honour of Ellen José Dr. Joseph Toscano Director, Ellen José Memorial Foundation Ellen José (1951–2017) was a pioneer in Australia’s indigenous art movement, a radical activist, anarchist and social justice campaigner. Born 1951 in Cairns, of Torres Strait, English and Filipino descent, Ellen attended Parramatta State Primary School and Cairns State High. She left home at 16 when she found employment as a ticket writer and window dresser at Myer, in Cairns. She was the frst indigenous woman in North Queensland to hold a job that interacted directly with the public and was proud of the fact she received the equivalent to male wages for her work. Ellen could have stayed in Cairns for the rest of her life but she had plans for herself and her children. In an interview with Christobel Botten from The Age in 1989, she said, ‘My way of surviving was to give myself a challenge. When I achieved that challenge, I would aim for another’. Finding herself a single mother with two small children, after a failed marriage, she took advantage of the Whitlam led Labor government’s education and social security reforms. She obtained a Certifcate of Applied Art in 1976 at the Seven Hills Art College, Brisbane. Looking for fresh challenges, Ellen moved to Melbourne in 1976 completing a Diploma in Fine Art and Design at Preston Institute of Technology in 1978 and a Diploma in Education (Secondary) at Melbourne State College in 1979. While at Melbourne State College she was diagnosed with type 1 insulin dependent diabetes. At frst shocked by the lifelong implications of the diagnosis, she eventually embraced the diagnosis as just another of the many hurdles and challenges she faced during a lifetime of mental, physical, cultural, racial and gender challenges. A gifted art teacher, she worked for Aboriginal Education in Victoria, lectured in fne art as a guest lecturer at Monash University and was a permanent lecturer at Deakin University, Geelong. She also worked as a secondary art teacher in Melbourne and was a guest lecturer in Japan, China, Brisbane, Cairns and Canberra. Ellen was a tireless community worker and was involved in initiating and creating murals in several primary schools in Melbourne to promote the idea of reconciliation among children. Ellen believed they, and they alone, could create the momentum to fnally bridge the divisions created by a colonialisation process based on Terra nullius— ‘nobody’s land’. Ellen’s career as a visual artist is what defnes her. She mastered oils, watercolour, calligraphy, photography, ceramics, video art, flm, installation art, printmaking (linocut and woodblock), drawing, murals and book illustrations. Ellen’s work is represented in many public and private collections in Australia and overseas, including the National Gallery of Australia, the Australian War Memorial and the National Museum of Australia, to name a few. Ellen José had her frst solo exhibition at the newly established Aboriginal Artist’s Gallery, Melbourne, in 1987. Her frst exhibition was a huge success and over the next 30 years she had 21 solo exhibitions and participated in countless group exhibitions in Australia and overseas. Ellen had many diverse interests including learning the piano and taking opera lessons. Ellen José Pipi 1998 oil on linen 92 x 92 cm Courtesy Ellen José Memorial Foundation 11 12 In 2009, she was awarded the Eureka Australia Medal to honour her three decades of radical activism. Her long list of accomplishments includes being co-founder of the Libertarian Workers for a Self-Managed Society (1976) and the Anarchist Media Institute (1986). She was the primary artist for the Australian Anarchist Centenary Celebrations (1986) and was the foundation member of the Reclaim the Radical Spirit of the Eureka Rebellion Celebrations (2002), Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner Commemoration Committee (2006), and many others. Ellen was the Chairperson of the Victorian Wongai Torres Strait Islander Association (2001– 02) and a member of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Board of the Australia Council (1996–99). Concerned about being caught up in an anthropological time warp, Ellen made a decision that determined her future trajectory as a visual artist. She decided she wanted to be known frst and foremost as an artist, not an indigenous artist. She had travelled extensively around the world, had met First Nations people, radical activists, people of diferent religious faiths, nationalities, cultural backgrounds, sexual orientation as well as people going about their everyday lives, and discovered the universal yearnings of humanity. In an interview in The Australian with Kylie Davis in 1989, Ellen stated ‘my work is a fusion of cultural techniques, designs and patterning emphasising the fact all people can maintain their own distinct and separate cultures while living together in peace’. Unwilling to be categorised as an indigenous artist, Ellen was encouraged by art entrepreneur Lauraine Diggins to contact William Mora the owner of William Mora Gallery. This initial meeting resulted in an association that lasted more than two decades. Ellen had 15 solo exhibitions with William Mora. She was fnally able to freely create whatever she wanted. The act of creation gave her the ability to keep the demons that troubled her, at bay. Ellen José ‘Untitled’ from the ‘Landscape’ series 1985 watercolour on paper 22.2 x 32.6 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased from Admission Funds, 1986 Her frst solo exhibition at William Mora Gallery in 1991, In search of lost innocence, tackled the issue of childhood sexual abuse a quarter of a century before childhood sexual abuse became a national issue. Ellen wrote, ‘this exhibition highlights a problem that is going on around the world, a problem that crosses racial, cultural, geographical and time barriers—childhood sexual abuse. This universal problem must not only be addressed, it must be stopped. This exhibition is my attempt to break the silence’. Martin Flanagan wrote in The Age, ‘the 17 watercolours and ink drawings that make up Ellen Jose’s exhibition can be read like a poem’. In 1992, her exhibition Black Diggers Ghost Fighters highlighted the plight of black diggers decades before it became fashionable to publicly discuss this issue. Six of the oils and watercolours in this exhibition were acquired by the Australian War Memorial. In 1993, her exhibition Life in the balance highlighted the issue of climate change decades before most people thought it was a problem. Her installation Life in the balance (1993) and three watercolours were acquired by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In her exhibition from Trash to treasure she highlighted how successive Australian governments marginalised, ostracised and legislated out of existence Australians of mixed racial backgrounds. In her much-acclaimed 2003 exhibition A fact is a fact, is a fact—Up yours Windshuttle she confronted head-on the denial of the brutality of the colonisation process that was being promoted by the Howard-led government. In an interview with Paul Greg in 2003 in the Herald Sun, Ellen states, ‘Windshuttle seems to be rewriting history to suit himself, and people like John Howard support it’. Greg wrote, ‘her paintings show the violence in symbolic language using eye-catching splashes of bright red, symbolising blood and signs including a Christian cross, traditional Torres Strait ceremonial gear and isolated human body parts’. Not all her work was as bold and obvious. Her installation Rest in peace Terra nullius (1996) is a cheeky representation of the traditional Torres Strait Islander ceremony when family and friends gather at the deceased’s grave site three years after they have died, to erect a headstone. Three years after the High Court of Australia in 1992 declared the death of Terra nullius, the legal fction Australia is built on, Ellen built a marble installation to once and for all bury the idea that Australia belonged to no one. On the headstone is carved: RIP Terra nullius 1788–1992 On Ellen’s death in 2017 William Mora wrote, ‘Ellen was a pioneer in the urban indigenous art movement pioneering political art to raise issues long ignored, and it was an honour to be able to show her work in my gallery over many years. Her art will live on despite her passing and it was a privilege to have known her. History will remember her well’. Ellen José Did they beat the drum slowly as they lowered you down 1992 watercolour on paper on linen 101.5 x 67.5 cm National Museum of Australia, Canberra 13 14 Ellen José Life in the balance 1993 bamboo, sand, shells, string, globe, rope and single channel video 260 x 170 x 170 cm overall Art Gallery of New South Wales. Purchased 1994 In an Art & Australia article ‘Island paradise: Identity and community in the art of Ellen José’, Jeanette Hoorn from the University of Melbourne comments on Ellen’s 2001 exhibition The light fades: ‘the result is a highly complex and hybrid oeuvre in which the artists’ broad interests and diverse background is evident’. She further states: Ellen José is the leading Torres Strait Islander artist of her generation. This new (The light fades 2001) series of paintings confrms her extraordinary talent as a painter and provides more evidence of her unique understanding of her homeland. Tom Mosby, the current director of the Koori Heritage Trust, in his article for Like, art magazine ‘The Hell primitivism’, comments on Ellen José’s 1997 mixed media installation With the coming of the Light from her exhibition Ailan Notbut, ‘it can be argued that the neo-colonist constructs of Western art has imposed on indigenous artists two choices for success within the industry, to either produce works that have the aura of otherness or to conform to the accepted precepts of Western art theory … José, however remains in limbo due to the nature of her work that retains a distinctiveness that defes classifcation’. In 1990 Ellen José wrote: In my work I have attempted to fuse Sumi-é techniques with European media and techniques, Torres Strait and Aboriginal patterning techniques. The reason for fusing these widely divergent techniques is in order to create a painting style that refects the composition of today’s Australia. Ellen continued to hold exhibitions despite a major stroke in 2005 that made walking difcult, and which afected her vision. She commenced renal dialysis in 2014 because of diabetic complications. Despite her many medical issues, in 2015 she was able to fullfl a childhood wish and travel to Iceland. She was the frst Australian ever to have dialysis in Iceland. As a four-year-old child, she came across a photograph of a man fshing through a hole in the ice. The photograph was of her mother’s pen pal in Iceland. She told her mother she would visit Iceland one day. Her mother laughed at the idea an indigenous child would ever be able to travel, let alone to Iceland. Ellen laughed when she went to Iceland against medical advice telling the doctors ‘Quality of life, not time on earth, is my quest’. The Ellen José Memorial Foundation was established in 2018 to ensure Ellen José’s legacy is not lost. The living and the dead need people to champion them in order for their legacy to survive. Ellen’s wish in her will, once her family’s needs had been met, was to promote reconciliation and to assist young female artists. Ellen José Libera II 1989 watercolour on paper 77 x 57 cm National Museum of Australia, Canberra 15 16 Ellen lived in Bayside for over a quarter of a century. She worked with Bayside City Council in a voluntary capacity to promote reconciliation. The Ellen José Student Reconciliation Awards is an Ellen José Memorial Foundation and Bayside City Council initiative that promotes reconciliation each year during Reconciliation Week. Art and literary prizes have been awarded to Bayside Primary and Secondary students over the past four years. The Ellen José Memorial Foundation hopes these awards will continue to be a feature of the Bayside fag raising ceremony. The Ellen José Art Award for young women is a joint initiative of the Ellen José Memorial Foundation and Bayside City Council to promote young female artists (18–35 years) during a critical time in their career when many abandon their dream of becoming a full-time artist. It not only provides a triannual $15,000 art prize, but also provides mentoring for the six fnalists. I hope this award will, in time, be on par with the Archibald Prize. Ellen José is survived by her children Cheryl José, Benjamin José, Libera Toscano, Joshua Toscano, and her grandchildren Madison Burgess, Eli Sasman and Jayda Sasman. Her husband, Dr. Joseph Toscano Director, Ellen José Memorial Foundation Intimacy and fortitude: the Ellen José Art Award for young women Joanna Bosse Curator, Bayside Gallery Next >