Pang Jie Siah

Loveable Australia

20

October 2022

20

Oct

2022

11

Nov 2022

Gallery 1

Loveable Australia

Pang Jie Siah

20

October 2022

20

October

2022

11

November 2022

Gallery 1

Despite being seen as multicultural, Australia has been built on white, masculine and colonialist narratives that were created through image-making processes of Western colonisers. In ‘The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia’, Bill Gammage describes how colonial-artists like Robert Hoddle and Arthur Streeton described the country as “picturesque and park-like,” idealising Australian landscapes to Euro-English cultures and perceptions. Colonisers depicted romanticised narratives of the “harsh” landscape through colonial image-making practices, pushing a Western, white and masculine Australia.Like painting, digital-media has continued to shape a Western-centred Australia. During the 80s, a series of Australian adverts depicted Paul Hogan and a majority of Caucasian actors to represent an Australia that was “like home” to Americans yet to be an exotic land to explore, not unlike settlers. The phrase, “shrimp on the barbie,” originated in these adverts, its cheap façade of Australian culture being analogous to Australia’s identity now.

Exhibition documented by Teagan Ramsay.

Despite being seen as multicultural, Australia has been built on white, masculine and colonialist narratives that were created through image-making processes of Western colonisers. In ‘The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia’, Bill Gammage describes how colonial-artists like Robert Hoddle and Arthur Streeton described the country as “picturesque and park-like,” idealising Australian landscapes to Euro-English cultures and perceptions. Colonisers depicted romanticised narratives of the “harsh” landscape through colonial image-making practices, pushing a Western, white and masculine Australia.Like painting, digital-media has continued to shape a Western-centred Australia. During the 80s, a series of Australian adverts depicted Paul Hogan and a majority of Caucasian actors to represent an Australia that was “like home” to Americans yet to be an exotic land to explore, not unlike settlers. The phrase, “shrimp on the barbie,” originated in these adverts, its cheap façade of Australian culture being analogous to Australia’s identity now.

Pang Jie Siah

Primarily through painting, Jie Siah's work explores modern undercurrents that pertain to isolation and loneliness in our current dynamic and rapidly changing society. Pang Jie Siah find's this aspect interesting as we have never been more connected and globalised due to the internet and transportation networks.