A new exhibition by artist Russell Shiells has opened in the Transept Gallery, featuring themes of reconciliation and facing the legacy of colonisation in Australia.
Emigration/Immigration/Dispossession aims to provoke discussion among viewers by drawing on emotive images and styles. It blends images from the earliest days of European arrival in Australia through to the present day to create themes that contrast privilege and disadvantage. While presenting the legacy of colonisation honestly and unromantically, the invitation to sit together at a table and find reconciliation remains. We are all encouraged to consider what we might do to accept that invitation.
Russell Shiells is a Melbourne-based artist, art teacher, and graphic designer. His particular interest in the way history shapes the present informs his work, often folding in personal experiences of place, relationships, and family.
His practice draws attention to important social, political, moral, and ethical subjects. Where issues are denied or minimised, Shiells draws them boldly into view, confronting the viewer with the lived reality of the poor, the dispossessed, and all those still suffering the devastating outcomes of colonisation in our country.
Emigration/Immigration/Dispossession will run from 27 February – 27 May. Free Entry.