The True History of Ned Kelly and Burka Woman: July 2013

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Burka Strikes Gold

Burka Woman was walking out among the trees beside the dry creek bed in her new home town of Natimuk one day, when she happened upon a strange metal object lying on the ground before her. She picked it up and held it up to the light, where it gleamed burning gold-orange secrets of fugitive love and perpetual persecution, of phantasmic liberty and embezzled culture...
and then she heard a kookaburra kook-kook kook-kook kook-kook kah-kah-kah kaaaah high in the tree above her, then another kookaburra kooka kaah-kaaahed kooka-kaah kaahed back from the next tree....a third kooka joined the cackle from a tree further down...and then the cockatoos flew in to land above, screeching, chattering, arguing, telling jokes...
Burka Woman settled in with her new Mask of Gold, the Merry Bush Symphony had begun.

SOLD

THE PAINTINGS....

You'll find on this site my 2004 Ned and Burka series: "A True Story and a Love Story"

followed by the paintings from my second series: "Mask", C3 gallery, Abbotsford Convent, Nov '08.

Then over 50 paintings from the 2010 "In Habit"show, Lab X gallery, St Kilda.

And then the "Beyond the Burka"paintings which were exhibited in March 2011 at the Arthur gallery, Ballarat.

The "Ned and Burka - old and new works" show was held in April 2013, at The Goat Gallery, Natimuk, Victoria.

To view this true history of over 120 paintings in its narrative form, it's best to go back to the first post, Dec 1st 2009: "In the beginning..."

* You can learn more about me and my recent work, which includes photo stories of Ned and Burka, or if you would like to view the Ned and Burka oil paintings which are still available to purchase, click here: www.marsdrum.com

Donning the Burqa after Sept 11th 2001...

I began to wear a burqa out on the streets, to festivals, exhibition openings, rallies, parties....

I could see that the Australian media frenzy surrounding the 9/11 event was breeding instant anti-Islamic sentiment amongst the Australian public, and by wearing the burqa, I wanted to expose this new breed of racism. The women who had always worn burqas in Melbourne were suddenly confined to indoors, not due to their own law, but forced to do so to protect themselves from a growing seething hatred of anything to do with “Islam” from people who believed themselves to be “real Australians”.

At first, I found wearing the burqa in inner Melbourne so soon after the collapse of the Twin Towers to be rather a dangerous experience. At Brunswick Street festival 2001, I had all sorts of white trash mainstream media victims addressing me aggressively, fists clenched. Strange men approaching me on the street, demanding that I "take that thing off immediately" and " Get the hell outa here"...one stupid bloke told me he wanted to hit me for being out in the public after what had happened in the USA. I had a couple of my male friends walking behind me at that festival to step up in my defence when the situation got too heated. Strange girls that day would offer advice to me like: "You should go home" or "That's not funny, you wearing that out on the street"...

My photo was discovered in the Mx.

I used this particular image of Howard to share an eye with Hitler, as it was the face that he pulled for the main newspapers during his fake Children Overboard media story for the election campaign... his face surrounded by ocean...

This is me at a refugee rally at Maribyrnong Detention Centre, 2005.

I wore my burqa on and off for the next few years. It was surprisingly liberating to wear the burqa...to be anonymous... shapeless... no-one measuring me up and down, including myself...

It was also addictive.

Weaning myself off the burqa was confusing, as I had no idea what to wear anymore! I'd had a thing about collecting and wearing vintage uniforms in the decades before donning the burqa... dental nurse, tram conductor, air hostess, airforce officer, nun, checkout chick...the burqa put an end to all that... it was time to move on, but my sense of direction was confused, what does one wear beyond the burqa?