Judy Watson was born in Mundubbera in North West Queensland. Her matrilineal family comes from the Waanyi language group, also known as ‘running water people’. Water is central to her artmaking, and she uses washes of paint and natural pigments, often drawn from the area in which she is working. Watson is interested in the hidden histories of Indigenous experience in colonised places, and her paintings suggest the geological and archaeological histories of the land. In 1998, she undertook the University of Canterbury’s Vahine Pasifika residency and made several works in response to the Waitaha Canterbury region, including this one, made using local whenua (earth).

(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- )