Venus #7 2007

In this photograph, Queensland artist and Badtjala woman Fiona Foley challenges a tradition of ethno-eroticism and what she describes as ‘colonial Australia’s pigeon-holing of Aboriginal women as easy sexual targets but not marriageable’. Identifiable only by her clothed lower body and a distinctive pair of red heels, the artist liberates herself from prescribed racial and sexual stereotypes. In doing so, she denies the spectator the gratuitous pleasure of looking upon her naked form — an act typically associated with viewing classical depictions of the goddess Venus. Posed on a city boardwalk alongside the Brisbane River, Foley represents an empowered and confident woman at home in this urban environment.