Archibald prize winner Blak Douglas has returned to his roots, holding his mid-career exhibition, ‘The Halfway Line’, at Penrith Regional Gallery.
The showcase has multiple meanings, with ‘The Halfway Line’ referring to Douglas’ career, as well as social and cultural lines the Dhungatti artist has crossed.
“What you can expect to see are works that certainly wouldn’t have seen me developing a fruitful and lucrative career in art in my hometown of Penrith,” Douglas said.
“What I mean by that is that there are some very politically sensitive works that came from my young and angry warrior days as I grappled to understand the concept of one of the youngest colonies on the planet and how it has affected my First Nations people in a minuscule timeline of 236 years.”
The exhibition will explore themes of social justice and politics, but also Douglas’ lived experiences, including his childhood and transformative time at Western Sydney University (WSU).
“I tied it in with my hometown of Penrith and my former sporting days where I remember being a little fella aspiring to be Brad Fittler and getting to the halfway when you’re bolting away to score a try and realising that you’ve still got all that distance to go,” Douglas reminisced, later adding that he was able to kick a goal from halfway down the field.
“I’m hoping that it’s metaphoric for what lies ahead for my career.”
From kicking a ball around Jamison Park as a child, to pursuing a career in athletics in his 20s, to studying graphic design at WSU, to his first art exhibition in Jamisontown in 1998, to winning the most prestigious art prize in Australia in 2022 – Douglas described his career as an avalanche coming down the mountain, gaining momentum, and taking everything with it.
“It was an incredibly fortunate momentum because it all started with a love and passion for didgeridoo, which I thought every Aboriginal boy played, but then I found a love for making statements on canvas,” Douglas said.
“Sadly, to an extent, back in the 80s people were not migrant-friendly or open-minded towards egalitarian, so reaching university and studying, suddenly I was surrounded by these people that had worldly views.
“That enabled me to open up my eyes and I chose to be representative of my grandmother who never had a voice but rather was stolen and made a slave to the Commonwealth of Australia.”
Douglas said this is the most important exhibition he’s had on this continent.
“It’s a fine-tuned snapshot of 26 years of work, and a period of time where fundamentally – as U2 said – I still haven’t found what I’m looking for, and that’s answers as to how we can pretend to coexist despite having the statistics that we have for First Nations people today.”
‘The Halfway Line’s’ Opening Night will be on Saturday, March 22 from 5pm to 8pm. Everyone is welcome to attend to see the survey show that begins and ends in Penrith.
Ally Hall
Ally Hall joined the Weekender in 2024, and focuses on entertainment and community stories. She's a graduate of the University of South Australia and has previously worked as a Video Journalist with Southern Cross Austereo and as a News Reader with Australian Radio Network.