Title

McKenzie, Queenie.

Author

Australian Art Print Network.

Source

[Not applicable]

Publication date

2001

Type

Biography

Language

English

Country of context

Australia

Full text

Queenie McKenzie

Queenie McKenzie had a relatively short artistic career as she did not begin to paint until the late 1980s after encouragement from her friend, Rover Thomas, one of Australia’s most well known Aboriginal artists.

McKenzie was born at Old Texas Downs on the Ord River to a Malngin/Gurindji Aboriginal mother and white horsebreaker father. Being half-caste her mother had to disguise her fairness on several occasions by covering her with charcoal, in order to prevent her being taken away from her people and brought up in a mission, under the Australian government’s assimilationist policy of the time.

She worked as a cook on cattle stations for almost 40 years until 1973 when she settled in Turkey Creek (Warmun). She was a strong member of the Warmun community; a Councillor and teacher of the Gija language and also played a significant role in the reclaiming of traditional land in the region. She was heavily committed to ceremonial life.

Her painting followed Rover Thomas’ style, mapping country in natural ochers, blending landscape with witnessed or remembered events, family anecdotes and mythological information. Her landscapes are very distinctive, particularly her rendition of the Kimberleys. She used dots to delineate her simple forms, not as a form of intuitive primitivism, but as a link to the traditional work of the Turkey Creek movement.

She became an active printmaker after producing her first prints in 1995 in collaboration with printmaker Theo Tremblay. Her work has been widely exhibited since 1991. It was included in the exhibitions Power of the Land, Masterpieces of Aboriginal Art at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1992, and she also had a solo exhibition in Melbourne in 1997. McKenzie on 16 November 1998

 

Biography courtesy of the Australian Art Print Network, 2001.

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