2008.394 MOORE
Archie Moore uses a wide variety of different media, depending on the subject of his works. With his carefully crafted paper sculptures, Moore communicates an experience for Aboriginal people of colonisation and the introduction and perpetuation of Christianity. Here, the artist has focused on the singular story of renowned Arrernte artist Albert Namatjira. Moore comments on the interventions into peoples' lives by Church and State through a replica of the Hermannsburg Lutheran Church emerging from an image of one of Namatjira's watercolours.
Throughout his life, Namatjira was feted as a great artist, but was powerless as an Aboriginal person under the control of government legislation. Even after he became the first Aboriginal person granted Australian citizenship, his applications to build his own house in Alice Springs were rejected on the basis of his Aboriginality. Allusions are also made to current government interventions into Aboriginal affairs, which serve to further erode Aboriginal sovereignty and self-management.
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