Julie Gough

b. 1965, Melbourne

Artist statement

"Intertidal" is an exhibition that visually articulates how I have been feeling since I left Australia in September 2001 for a year of residencies and since that date  have undergone a non stop array of personal, employment and life changing experiences.

The only constant in my life seems to be an endless sense of movement somewhat like the tides. This connection with the seas and salt waters gives me some courage and much comfort and I feel its pull wherever I am.    This is likely why I am now living 5 houses from the beach in Townsville.

I created my first significant Intertidal work in 2003 at ANU for the 'ABSTRACTIONS' exhibition because this sense of being pulled in different directions, living between and within varied states and places then conveyed and still best conveys the mysteries of place, seeming coincidence and the relief and release of locating story and medium in my everyday.

Some of the works in this exhibition are celebratory and peaceful renditions of my inner state of being, in flux, between land and sea, not settled in new places, but testing waters and finding much. Other pieces that pair with these emotive painted renditions are ink jet print critical responses to the commodification of Indigenous art and process through the digitalisation of time, space and identities.

"Intertidal" is an exhibition, like those past, about me now navigating my reality. Consisting of reflections in to the deep past of my self, family, ancestors and the means of materialising form  there are also works about me now and questions about the expectations of the art market.

Biography and general artist statement

Julie Gough is a visual artist working predominantly in sculpture and installation art who is also currently employed as a Lecturer in Visual Arts at James Cook University, Townsville. Julie’s art and research practice involves uncovering and re-presenting historical stories as part of an ongoing project  that questions and re-evaluates the impact of the past on our present lives. Much of her sculptural work refers to her own and her family’s experiences as Tasmanian Aboriginal people and is concerned with developing a visual language to express and engage with conflicting and subsumed histories.  A central intention of Julie’s art is to invite a viewer to a closer understanding of our continuing roles in, and proximity to unresolved National stories. 

“My work revisits sites of history and memory often recorded only in text. I rework versions of the past from between the lines, seeking voices and direction in a detective-like search for alternative and visual means of representation. I sculpt as my way to retrieve the forgotten or unspoken narratives of this nation, and to invite the viewer to engage with stories and implications perhaps not otherwise voluntarily approached."

Since undertaking a solo artist residency (Arts Tasmania Wilderness Residency, Eddystone Light, 2001) in her maternal (Trawlwoolway) ancestral homeland of Tebrikunna in far north east Tasmania Julie Gough’s work has evolved into more personal, introspective musings about intangible states of being. Formerly hard-edged sometimes satirical political commentary about race and identity today Julie Gough’s work reflects [on] both internal and external states of being and negotiation.

“I am interested in shorelines; the places between past and present, day and night, conscious and unconscious. My art making navigates these spaces of evocation in an effort to trigger re-surfacings of cultural memories beyond habituated contemporary frameworks that distrust the sensorial. My feeling is that there is something ‘other’ through which humans individually mediate the world. Working with this spirit of our presence provides me meaning, reason and a way (art making) to engage with the often detached exteriorised public world. My intention is to investigate and provide new ways to reflect upon and hence understand places of time, memory, history and the past within a personal present.”

Julie Gough’s first major exhibiting opportunity was Perspecta 1995, curated by Judy Annear, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and that same year Gabrielle Pizzi invited Julie to exhibit in Melbourne for the first time in the exhibition New Voices – New Directions. Since that initial group exhibition Julie has exhibited in solo exhibitions at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi on three occasions : Heartland in 2001, Re-collections in 1997 and Dark secrets/Home Truths in 1996. Since 1994 Julie Gough has exhibited in over eighty exhibitions, nationally and internationally and Julie’s work is represented in collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, The Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, The National Museum Australia, Canberra, Mildura Arts Centre, Victoria, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, City of Port Phillip, Victoria.

Julie has previously been employed as a Curator of Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Victoria, a lecturer in Aboriginal studies at Riawunna at the University of Tasmania and as an Interpretation Officer, Aboriginal Culture at the Tasmanian Parksand Wildlife Service . Other experiences include Co-judging the annual Telstra NATSIAA (National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards) Awards hosted by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in 2004, co-judging the National Interpretation Awards, Australia 2004 and as Tasmanian representative on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board of the Australia Council, 2003.

Julie has undertaken artist residencies in Tasmania (Wilderness Residency, Arts Tasmania, 2001), New York (Greene St Studio, Australia Council for the Arts, 2002, London (Samstag Scholarship, MVA, University of London 1997-8), Paris and Mauritius (Commonwealth Award, 2001-2) and was awarded a PhD from the University of Tasmania in 2001 (Transforming Histories: the visual disclosure of contentious pasts, 2000), MFA (University of London, Goldsmith’s College,1998), BFA 1st class Honours (University of Tasmania 1994), BVA (Curtin University, 1993) and BA (Prehistory and English Literature, UWA, 1986).