Gordon HOOKEY

All elections bring forth a tumultuous change in the Australian society, as the old order is thrown out like confetti from a departing ship of fools and a new course is set for a journey charting turbulent and dangerous waters of the minds, hearts, and spirit of all of us in our Country, in the nation-state of Australia.

Over some forty years, Gordon Hookey has crafted and defined meaning to this juggernaut of Australian reality, which has shaped his life and generations before him. A juggernaut that demands the submission and acquiescence of First Nations Peoples in its merciless and destructive path. In challenging this juggernaut of the colonial movement, Gordon has become one of the most inspiring, extraordinary, political artists of our generation alongside his peers, as he deconstructs and reconstructs alternate universes, disrupting and distorting imagery, language, and narrative to posit deep philosophical tenets of our humanity and delighting us with his humour, wit, and razor-sharp commentary.

As a student in 1989 at the College of Fine Arts (now UNSW Art & Design) in Darlinghurst, Sydney, Gordon recounts how his class were set a task of carrying a mirror, never letting it leave their side, regardless of the menial activities of their lives – washing, sitting on the toilet, lying in bed, sitting in a classroom, walking through streets and gallery exhibitions. The question they were asked to ponder and meditate: who are you? who is the artist? Through this endeavour, his artistic philosophy was explored, realised and articulated, resonant of Shakespeare’s , “To Thine Own Self, Be True.” Gordon expressed that he was learning to think of himself in the