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Image from Courting Blakness
Fiona Foley Fiona Foley i(8840600 works by)
Born: Established: 1964 Maryborough, Maryborough (Qld) area, Maryborough - Hervey Bay - Fraser Island area, Maryborough - Rockhampton area, Queensland, ;
Gender: Female
Heritage: Aboriginal ; Aboriginal Butchulla/Batjala/Badtjala
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BiographyHistory

Fiona Foley creates work across media that deal with history, identity, sovereignty and personal signification. In all her work, she insists the viewer re-examine historical stereotypes.

Her national contribution to the arts was recognised when she was awarded the Australia Council artist of the year for 2013.

Throughout her career, Foley has engaged issues of indigenous identity on a regional, national and international level, creating a dialogue with artists and communities here and around the world. In 2013 Foley delivered the keynote address for the Origins Festival of First Nations in London.

In 2009-10, the University of Queensland Art Museum and Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art co-curated a major survey exhibition of Fiona Foley’s work, titled Forbidden.

In 2011, Fiona Foley was appointed an Adjunct Professor with the University of Queensland and her essay, ‘When the Circus Came to Town’ was published in the November issue of Art Monthly.

Recent group shows include the Australia exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and unDisclosed – 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial.

Recent solo shows include a retrospective at Andrew Baker Gallery as well as a show at CAST in Tasmania and Niagara Galleries. Another show of works from her career was exhibited at Redcliffe City Gallery titled Courage.

She has many major public sculpture works including Lie of the Land, Melbourne (1997); Bible and Bullets, at Redfern Park, Sydney (2008); Black Opium, State Library of Queensland, Brisbane (2009) and Blue Water Art Trail, Mackay (2009).

A founding member of the Boomalli artist co-op formed in 1987, Foley has been involved in numerous group projects over the course of her career and has a deep commitment to mentoring the next generation of contemporary Indigenous artists and arts professionals.

In 2020, she released Biting the Clouds: A Badtjala Perspective on the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act, 1897 (UQP).

Source: Courting Blakness website, hosted by AustLit.

Exhibitions

10221067
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Most Referenced Works

Notes

  • In 2018, Fiona Foley won the 2018 Windmill Trust scholarship for regional NSW artists. 

On the Web

Personal Awards

2022 recipient Australian Academy of the Humanities Fellowships and Medals — Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities
2020 inaugural recipient Queensland Memory Awards — Monica Clare Research Fellowship 'Dr Foley proposes two outcomes from the Monica Clare Research Fellowship - a publication of essays and documentary photographs on site during the process of making my new photographic series titled, The Magna Carta Tree. The publication will have the title, Bogimbah Creek Mission: The First Aboriginal Experiment.' (Queensland Memory Awards).
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Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Biting The Clouds Biting the Clouds : A Badtjala Perspective on the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2020 20288202 2020 multi chapter work criticism

Biting The Clouds

A Badtjala perspective on the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act, 1897

'In this groundbreaking work of Indigenous scholarship, nationally renowned visual artist Fiona Foley addresses the inherent silences, errors and injustices from the perspective of her people, the Badtjala of K’gari (Fraser Island). She shines a critical light on the little-known colonial-era practice of paying Indigenous workers in opium and the ‘solution’ of then displacing them to K’gari.

Biting the Clouds – a euphemism for being stoned on opium – combines historical, personal and cultural imagery to reclaim the Badtjala story from the colonisation narrative. Full-colour images of Foley’s artwork add further impact to this important examination of Australian history.'

(Source : UQP)
2022 highly commended New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Indigenous Writer's Prize
2021 winner Queensland Literary Awards — Queensland Premier's Award for a Work of State Significance
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Last amended 5 Nov 2020 11:57:50
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