Historical information

Steven Ulula Parker is a descendant of the Boonwurrung, Yorta Yorta, and Erub peoples and is an artist, surfer and leading cultural educator, living on Millowl (Phillip Island).

This large canvas painting has a central black form recognisable as the shape of marks made on trees by First Nations ancestors, particularly in South-Eastern Australia. These marks (or “scars”) on trees show where bark was removed to create tools such as coolamons and shields, and reference a “complex matrix of relations to Country, community and culture” (Professor Brian Martin, 2023). The form also echoes the shape of a surfboard, a reference that connects to Parker’s practice of painting surfboards.

White lines on this central black shape create a diamond pattern – a traditional pattern of the Boonwurrung. Surrounding the black and white diamond pattern, painted marks in a palette of black, white, red and yellow fill the canvas in a layered, action painting style. Handprints in yellow and red are visible, creating a connection to the earliest mark-making of First Nations ancestors using ochre.

Physical description

acrylic painting on canvas