Summary

Maree is a highly respected Koori artist and curator and a champion of contemporary south-east Australian Aboriginal art and culture. With a career as an artist spanning over thirty years, Maree remains one of the key figures in the story of south-east Australian Aboriginal art and the practice of cultural reclamation. The capacity for art to reconnect people with their cultural heritage remains central to Maree's philosophy. She believes in the power of art to heal and to inspire people to positively identify with their Aboriginality. Her interest in exploring her family designs and markings, and the totems connected with the Yorta Yorta, Mutti Mutti, Wemba Wemba and Boon Wurrung groups, has been increasingly revealed through her work.

The 1988 Bicentennial celebrations prompted many Aboriginal groups to contest the limited understandings of Aboriginal peoples and culture within the Australian mainstream. Maree became involved in this movement through working with the Mildura Aboriginal Cooperative to establish an art centre known as 'Kiah Crafts'. Kiah Crafts was an Aboriginal community organisation which became a hub for Aboriginal artists in the Mildura area to not only sell their art but to share knowledge, skills and reclamations with other community members.
During this period Maree developed her beautiful jewellery designs which included necklaces and earrings made from echidna quills and bush seeds. Maree's jewellery practice is closely aligned with her passion for the illumination and reinvigoration of south-eastern Australian Aboriginal culture. Her cultural reclamations importantly act as a contestation of the popular misconception that 'real' Aboriginal people and art can only be found in the more remote regions of Australia.

Physical Description

Earrings (pair a+b) made from composite wood-cut in two joined triangular geometric shapes, painted geometrics in brown and black on one side, plain black on the reverse side. Seven and three echidna quills are attached to the wood portion via metal links.

Significance

Maree Clarke's work as an artist is multidisciplinary, and includes jewellery-making, photography, painting and sculpture. Spanning more than 30 years, Maree's working life as an artist has seen her develop as a pivotal figure in the reclamation of south-east Australian Aboriginal art practices and as a leader in nurturing and promoting the diversity of contemporary south-east Aboriginal artists.
'I collect materials from places I have a blood connection to. Whether for the skin of a Carpet Snake or the feathers of a black cockatoo, I need to go up-country to get the material. When I visit country, the places I go to I always have a connection to otherwise they have no relevance. I am always thinking about country and family with every painting that I do. I also gather and use a lot of natural material, such as gum nuts, bottlebrush, acacia and any other natural material I can find. I also combine natural fibres, such as string and sinew, to make some of my sculptural pieces. In my jewellery designs I combine a lot of natural things. Most of my work is based on collaborative practice because the significance of passing on cultural knowledge is important to me. The practice of sharing knowledge and working collaboratively is an inherent part of how I work. I like my family to be around when I'm working so that I can pass that knowledge on.' Maree Clarke, 2009

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