NAOMI HOBSON - SUPER SOAKER

NAOMI HOBSON
SUPER SOAKER,  2022, ed. 1/5
75 x 104 cm; 81 x 110 cm (framed)
photographic print on cotton rag art paper 310 GSM
 
PROVENANCE
Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne
Private collection, Sydney
Art Leven, NSW
 
STORY
Naomi Hobson is a painter, photographer, and ceramicist of Southern Kaantju/Umpila descent who lives on the riverbeds that surround the small town of Coen in Queensland in the centre of Cape York Peninsula in far north Queensland, where her grandparents were born.
 
This image is drawn from her series Adolescent Wonderland (first displayed as part of Tarnanthi’s Open Hands exhibition). The series explores the real-life story of young indigenous people in remote Australia and was inspired by the classic children’s novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Themes of youth, playfulness and childhood memory are evident. Just as Alice followed the white rabbit, the young men and their brightly coloured props lure the viewer into a dreamlike reality.
 
Other editions are held in the collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Art Gallery of South Australia, the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) and Shepparton Art Museum.