Michael Philp artists statement

Michael Philp  ‘Mixed Blessings’

My art mainly looks at the relationships between aboriginal people, in a contemporary way, opening the window on the life and lives of aboriginal people who live their lives in urban and semi rural areas.

Growing up basically on the Gold Coast being exposed to modern pop culture, that mainly of American pop culture. The music the films the fashion, I didn't know any different, of course. I knew I was aboriginal and was proud of it, for me personally a lot of stories that my grandmother talked about, went through one ear, out the other. When I was a teenager, aboriginal stories of the past couldn't hold my attention long enough. I was more busy hanging out with my mates and checking out girls. It's only now that I regret not paying more attention to my grandmother.

I use mainly dots in my paintings combining abstract and stick figures to represent the images if people in social settings. Urban aboriginal people have been exposed to so much of the dominant culture that sometimes I wonder where they begin and where we end or vice versa. We own homes, have good educations, are employed in professional jobs and so on, contemporary aboriginal people have carved a path from the days of oppression in the sixties, with the referendum, to the land rights marches of the seventies and eighties, to a place over the last twenty years where young aboriginal people have so much more opportunities then previously. The road is still long but aboriginal affairs have come a long way, so has our art, music, dance and drama.

Aboriginal people have new exciting stories to tell the world about, to me this is a great freedom creatively and culturally. It's been so liberating for me personally to be able to use the medium of painting to express how I feel, about issues and the way aboriginal people live their lives in a modern context. Being more open about sexuality, spirituality, motherhood, fatherhood. Being  a parent issues of drug and alcohol on aboriginal communities, sexual abuse within aboriginal communities, the role mainstream religions have had on indigenous peoples, being both positive and negative,  altering our perceptions of reality. Not all those experiences are bad in a lot of cases people can find stories of courage strengths and love. There have been groups and individuals within the mainstream society over several generations who have been champion advocates of aboriginal people and that continues today but like anything worthwhile change has to come from within the aboriginal community and from within the individual. My strength of purpose comes from my art my creativity and my spirituality in the creator.

Exhibitions

Mens Ceremony - Ballina Community Gallery 2009