Laurie Nilsen

The eldest of thirteen children, Laurie Nilsen was born in 1953 and grew up in a tent in the public camping reserve on the banks of Bungil Creek, Roma, south-west Queensland. As a teenager he moved to Brisbane to pursue a career as a jockey. He then established himself as commercial artist and printer, before completing a Bachelor of Arts and securing a successful career as professional artist. Nilsen was a co-founder of Fireworks Gallery and a founding member of the Campfire Group of Artists and proppaNOW Artists Collective. For over twenty-five years he has been a lecturer in the Bachelor of Contemporary Australian Indigenous Arts course at Queensland College of Art, Griffith University. In his own words, Nilsen tells Michael Aird about his life and career.

In the 1980s I would have been the only Aboriginal commercial artist in Queensland. It was a time when Aboriginal Departments and organisations were starting up and I was picking up the work designing logos. I worked in the Aboriginal